4 ms·

I don't get it. Queries are a precise, textual specification of the data you need from a database. How can you hate that? Perhaps what you mean is you hate d

I don't get it. Queries are a precise, textual specification of the data you need from a database. How can you hate that? Perhaps what you mean is you hate dealing with converting the results to the data types you will use in your application? Perhaps what you mean is you hate the administrative overhead of creating separate files and dealing with deployment when creating stored procedures? Perhaps what you mean is you hate properly inserting your native data types into a written SQL query in a secure way? Or do you actually hate writing SQL? To me, that's the best part of interacting with databases.

dasil003 16y ago
No doubt, I mean any kind of coding can be tedious. I feel that way about virtually anything in Java. SQL while far from perfect in many ways is at least extremely terse and flexible. Sounds like maybe he just needs an ORM for his day-to-day stuff so he can focus on only the interesting queries.
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tmcneal 16y ago
I agree. I'm developing on Google App Engine now and the lack of a true SQL language in the Datastore is my biggest pain point right now. The expressiveness of SQL and performance of a mature DBMS beats the pants off of the GAE Datastore at the moment. Obviously scalability is the major benefit of App Engine, but I'm not so sure the trade-offs are worth it.
swix 16y ago
like I said further down the thread, I don't hate "SQL" the language itself, I hate the time I have to spend writing queries, I see it as some kind of "extra layer of butter" between the website/app and me. I would like to automate it more that's all. I get that SQL is required for a lot of reasons a lot of times, but for what I do currently webapps/sites/etc probably 80% could be done with some sort of tool if it existed, it's not very complex queries, but yet someone have to create them and that's time and thats boring (to me). I don't find it interesting at all, I do like to develop stuff, websites, apps but more oriented at the visual stuff, the data to me is just.. should just be accessible there ready to play with. I guess I see writing query code as going to the toilet and taking a dump, it's not really "funny" and yet you have to do it, only that maybe the query part could be improved upon with some tooling to reduce time etc.
klahnako 16y ago
... Perhaps what you mean is you hate the escape characters used to switch between html and sql. Perhaps what you mean is you hate the MVC separation. I do not agree with swix that drag and drop is that solution. If there is one thing that has burned me too many times it is visual programming. Visual programming, to me, converts somatic gestures into black-box code. I love casting magic spells, but the lack of tools make them hard to fix: You must start from scratch for a small change. I believe the solution is textual: Where different text means different things, and text can be edited to correct your mistakes. This means SQL will stay. On another subject, I can see how Model/View separation is causing great pain. Separating a simple view into 2+ files makes a distinction without a measurable benefit. How often has your model changed without touching the view? And when it did, would having it all in one file make that change harder? From my little experience, the majority cases leave Models and Views in a 1-1 correspondence. I agree with swix that current languages make those cases needlessly difficult.

dasil003 16y ago

No doubt, I mean any kind of coding can be tedious. I feel that way about virtually anything in Java. SQL while far from perfect in many ways is at least extremely terse and flexible. Sounds like maybe he just needs an ORM for his day-to-day stuff so he can focus on only the interesting queries.

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tmcneal 16y ago

I agree. I'm developing on Google App Engine now and the lack of a true SQL language in the Datastore is my biggest pain point right now. The expressiveness of SQL and performance of a mature DBMS beats the pants off of the GAE Datastore at the moment. Obviously scalability is the major benefit of App Engine, but I'm not so sure the trade-offs are worth it.

swix 16y ago

like I said further down the thread, I don't hate "SQL" the language itself, I hate the time I have to spend writing queries, I see it as some kind of "extra layer of butter" between the website/app and me. I would like to automate it more that's all. I get that SQL is required for a lot of reasons a lot of times, but for what I do currently webapps/sites/etc probably 80% could be done with some sort of tool if it existed, it's not very complex queries, but yet someone have to create them and that's time and thats boring (to me). I don't find it interesting at all, I do like to develop stuff, websites, apps but more oriented at the visual stuff, the data to me is just.. should just be accessible there ready to play with. I guess I see writing query code as going to the toilet and taking a dump, it's not really "funny" and yet you have to do it, only that maybe the query part could be improved upon with some tooling to reduce time etc.

klahnako 16y ago

... Perhaps what you mean is you hate the escape characters used to switch between html and sql. Perhaps what you mean is you hate the MVC separation. I do not agree with swix that drag and drop is that solution. If there is one thing that has burned me too many times it is visual programming. Visual programming, to me, converts somatic gestures into black-box code. I love casting magic spells, but the lack of tools make them hard to fix: You must start from scratch for a small change. I believe the solution is textual: Where different text means different things, and text can be edited to correct your mistakes. This means SQL will stay. On another subject, I can see how Model/View separation is causing great pain. Separating a simple view into 2+ files makes a distinction without a measurable benefit. How often has your model changed without touching the view? And when it did, would having it all in one file make that change harder? From my little experience, the majority cases leave Models and Views in a 1-1 correspondence. I agree with swix that current languages make those cases needlessly difficult.