4 ms·

> You mean they got better? Well, I mean they support new features, which is perhaps "better", though when you continue to tack on features for decades, perhap

• tomnipotent 8y ago
  Good point, I was conflating SQL & RDBMS.
• wrs 8y ago
  On the contrary, a model that is solid enough that you can continue to improve and build features on it for decades without changing the fundamentals is an extremely rare triumph in this industry. The signal that “something is wrong” is that you have to reinvent the foundation every five years (e.g., the tottering stack of false starts inside all web browsers).
  • Latteland 8y ago
    sql has stood the test of time, but we've also figured out how to extend the sql dbs and relational model so that it works efficiently in a lot more scenarios. there are column stores that do incredible compression, in-memory row stores, you can put json in a sql database and efficiently query it.
  • weberc2 8y ago
    Features aren’t being “built on it”, they’re being bolted on because the model is insufficiency powerful, which is my point. To be clear, relational databases are great and important, but the relational model will have to be replaced.
    • nl 8y ago
      There are two issues I know of with SQL where it isn't super great IMHO. 1) Hierarchical data. The relational model is fine here, but the query syntax isn't awesome. 2) Understanding remote data. This is outside the scope of the data model, but it does effect the way software is built. Neither of these show any evidence that the relational model should be replaced.
      • naasking 8y ago
        > There are two issues I know of with SQL where it isn't super great IMHO. There are many more issues, you've just gotten used to eating SQL turds. Hierarchical data is solved by CTEs, so that's not a big deal. The bigger deal is that relations themselves are impoverished second-class citizens. This means you can't write a query, bind it to a variable and then reuse that query to build another query or store that query in a table column. Something like: var firstQuery = select * from Foo where ... var compositeQuery = select * from firstQuery where ... create table StoredQuery(id int not null primary key, query relation) insert into StoredQuery values (0, firstQuery) That's something like relations as first-class values. This replaces at least 3 distinct concepts in SQL: views, CTEs, and temporary tables, all of which were added to address SQL's expressiveness limitations. Relations as first-class values not only improve the expressiveness of SQL beyond those 3 constructs, it would also solve many annoying domain problems that require a lot of boilerplate at the moment. Then there's pervasive NULL, inconsistent function and value semantics across implementations, and a few other issues.
        • TimJYoung 8y ago
          The schema aspects of this idea are hard for me to grasp. How would the database engine efficiently resolve any references to the embedded relation ? I'm also having trouble understanding how your INSERT statement would even work - is the firstQuery being inserted being treated as hierarchical data where every single relation attached to every single row has its own schema/structure ? Or is the structure fixed in the CREATE TABLE statement so that you can't use just any relation, but rather have to use a relation that conforms to the structure defined in the CREATE TABLE statement ?
• smadge 8y ago
  What do you think of perhaps a logical (e.g. Prolog or Datadog) model for databases?
  • weberc2 8y ago
    I’m not familiar with those. What do _you_ think about them? :)
    • smadge 8y ago
      They are what came to mind when you said perhaps the relational algebra was not sufficient as a theoretical model of databases.