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Since when is SQL a programming language?

• davidw 17y ago
  I put that on the list just to piss pedants off. If you're not careful, I'll put HTML on there to see you really squirm:-) Kidding aside, it's there because I think it's interesting to see where it stacks up against other things. (By the way, the list I am referring to, is of course the original site at http://LangPop.com http://LangPop.com - I had nothing else to do with this quiz)
  • drunkpotato 17y ago
    Turing completeness should be the minimal standard to be considered a programming language. SQL is a pseudo-relational query & update language. HTML is a markup language. Both are useful. Neither are programming languages. There are SQL extensions to make it Turing complete, because Turing completeness is pretty darn useful.
    • davidw 17y ago
      Absolutely correct, but I don't really give a shit :-) I'm curious to see how it fares against other languages. I'd rather have more data than less. You can always use a magic marker to cover it up on your computer screen if it offends you. There's a reason behind things like that too. It's a good check on the results to see how well SQL does in, say, job listings, where one listing might be a hit for both Java and SQL, as opposed to Ohloh, where, yes, SQL is going to be present in many projects, but not a majority of the code. And that makes sense, because pretty much anyone out there is going to know and use some SQL, so as a job skill, it's extremely popular.
• gizmo 17y ago
  T-SQL and Postgres SQL are turing complete. I think at that point you can call it a programming language.