4 ms·

The only edge cases I could find in the article were the discussion of nulls... which aren’t so much an edge case as they are just an ever-present problem that

by setr 7y ago

The only edge cases I could find in the article were the discussion of nulls... which aren’t so much an edge case as they are just an ever-present problem that no one really notices until it hurts (its not at all difficult to write a broken-on-null query). Is there something else you’re referring to? Afaict, everything else was just trivially observable aspects of the language >Given the vast usage of SQL and its overwhelming popularity, if there were real problems with the language then there would be a lot more noise about them. But most people seem to be happy with it. In what universe does popularity imply quality? Certainly not the one I’m in — Avengers endgame is apparently #2 gross worldwide ever :-)

orange8 7y ago
I think the point he is making is that why hasn't anything better come up to better represent the relational model in over 40 years?
- setr 7y ago
  There are other models as well eg datalog, but popularity is a factor of many things — a major factor with databases is that historically the engine is far more important than the language; you would expect users to choose an engine, and whatever language came with it. Which implies that the decision is on the producer side, not the consumers. Which finally implies that usage popularity is not adequately explained by user preference, because you wouldn’t expect user language preference to have significant impact on the decision making process. But regardless, are you also going to claim that C, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, etc were optimal in their respective fields, during their respective eras, because they held total market domination? Incumbency is one hell if a drug.. Bandwaggoning and deffering to the status quo is not argument for quality; there are too many factors involved beyond quality itself. Fixable flaws in the language have been pointed out and not been addressed in this conversation chain. Alternatives languages exist, both academically and practically; they don’t come alone. Its not a competition in a void, the ecosystem has to move together. This occurs in every aspect of tech (did you ever wonder if there could be an OS other than unix and window styles?). Asking why SQL was never beaten out in popularity is a hugely different question from whether there can be a better language than SQL, with largely unrelated amswers(Oracle/IBM were hardly fair players in anything they did)
  - geezerjay 7y ago
    > There are other models as well eg datalog, but popularity is a factor of many things The lack of popularity is also a reflection of how the string of next best things have failed to actually deliver on their promise, accompanied by the lack of a rational argument to adopt them instead of using a time-tested technology.
    - setr 7y ago
      What time-tested technology are you referring to? I'm only talking about the SQL language -- not the relational model, not the RDBMS engine, not the drivers. The SQL language is just an API to the total engine; the majority of its value derives from the relational model; the value of the relational algebra is not being questioned. Only the particular interface to describe the relational algebra. The power of the JVM is not the power of the Java language. You can have other languages make use of the same power Java has access to by targetting the JVM, and as a programming community we accept that just fine (and we also accept that despite Java having many known flaws as a language, its status as a first-party Oracle interface to the JVM, and its position within the status quo, makes it extremely difficult to upend; but that hardly implies Java is some perfect language, as most HN users will trivially acknowledge). In the same fashion, the SQL language is (ideally) decoupled from the RDBMS engine; it can be replaced. But in practice, they're not so decoupled, and SQL has been consistently the only first-class interface to the engine, so like Java, it (can) enjoys far greater ubiquity and stability from the quality of the underlying tech, than the language itself may deserve. So once again; popularity/stability of the SQL language is not (necessarily) exemplary of the quality of the SQL language. It's much more likely that it represents the value of the RDBMS, and the relational model (which I don't think anyone is arguing against), and the SQL language enjoys a free ride by being the only interface thats even offered. I mean hell, just read the article. It has trivially observable flaws in its design and semantics (like stuffing a 3VL logic into a 2VL language). EdgeQL may or may not be the optimal solution, and I'm not arguing (or interested in arguing) one way or the other on that, but I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that SQL's ubiquity shows its perfection, when it's so clearly imperfect (because those flaws are being very directly pointed out).
  - 7y ago
- ErwinSmout 7y ago
  Better things have come up. See the projects list at http://www.thethirdmanifesto.com/ http://www.thethirdmanifesto.com/ .
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    but no-one is using them, so are they actually better? (philosphical question, also pertains to a ton of better options... I mourn BeOS)
    - ErwinSmout 7y ago
      The particular meaning of "better" here was "better at representing the relational model". If you want to believe that popularity is a measure or reliable indicator of quality, I can't be bothered with you. PS I have a worked-out example on my site of what it takes to enforce a business rule "no one has a salary higher than his manager's" in SQL (> 100 LOC) and in SIRA_PRISE (one single relatively simple formula of the RA to declare). You decide which is "better".
      - speedplane 7y ago
        Much of the comments (and the article) criticize SQL as being non-standard and difficult to learn. These critiques have been around as long as SQL has. However, there is a more insidious problem with SQL: it's all too easy to write SQL statements that have O(N^2) complexity. A simple JOIN can easily result in O(N^2) complexity, yet there aren't easy tools to identify these performance issues. As a result, as a database grows, things that once were executed quickly take forever. I'd like to see the end of joins, replaced with something that is more explicit about what is happening under the hood.
        ErwinSmout 7y ago
        Your concerns are warranted. However. You are wrong tying the problem to joins. I remember an analyst who launched a SELECT COUNT because he was just curious about the number of rows in the table. No joins involved but users did suffer. Elsewhere in this thread I've seen the problem be tied to table scans, and that's also wrong. A table scan isn't a problem if it's a 5-page table. As Darwen often argued : why are people always only lamenting about those couple of tables with millions of rows ? Why should we deprive users of the power of relational algebra if their database simply aren't that big ? It's a matter of determining the cost of the data access strategy (regardless of JOIN/EXCEPT/what_have_you) and (implementing a protocol for) capping it at runtime (or earlier if possible). No need for language changes here.

by setr 7y ago

orange8 7y ago

I think the point he is making is that why hasn't anything better come up to better represent the relational model in over 40 years?

setr 7y ago
There are other models as well eg datalog, but popularity is a factor of many things — a major factor with databases is that historically the engine is far more important than the language; you would expect users to choose an engine, and whatever language came with it. Which implies that the decision is on the producer side, not the consumers. Which finally implies that usage popularity is not adequately explained by user preference, because you wouldn’t expect user language preference to have significant impact on the decision making process. But regardless, are you also going to claim that C, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, etc were optimal in their respective fields, during their respective eras, because they held total market domination? Incumbency is one hell if a drug.. Bandwaggoning and deffering to the status quo is not argument for quality; there are too many factors involved beyond quality itself. Fixable flaws in the language have been pointed out and not been addressed in this conversation chain. Alternatives languages exist, both academically and practically; they don’t come alone. Its not a competition in a void, the ecosystem has to move together. This occurs in every aspect of tech (did you ever wonder if there could be an OS other than unix and window styles?). Asking why SQL was never beaten out in popularity is a hugely different question from whether there can be a better language than SQL, with largely unrelated amswers(Oracle/IBM were hardly fair players in anything they did)
- geezerjay 7y ago
  > There are other models as well eg datalog, but popularity is a factor of many things The lack of popularity is also a reflection of how the string of next best things have failed to actually deliver on their promise, accompanied by the lack of a rational argument to adopt them instead of using a time-tested technology.
  - setr 7y ago
    What time-tested technology are you referring to? I'm only talking about the SQL language -- not the relational model, not the RDBMS engine, not the drivers. The SQL language is just an API to the total engine; the majority of its value derives from the relational model; the value of the relational algebra is not being questioned. Only the particular interface to describe the relational algebra. The power of the JVM is not the power of the Java language. You can have other languages make use of the same power Java has access to by targetting the JVM, and as a programming community we accept that just fine (and we also accept that despite Java having many known flaws as a language, its status as a first-party Oracle interface to the JVM, and its position within the status quo, makes it extremely difficult to upend; but that hardly implies Java is some perfect language, as most HN users will trivially acknowledge). In the same fashion, the SQL language is (ideally) decoupled from the RDBMS engine; it can be replaced. But in practice, they're not so decoupled, and SQL has been consistently the only first-class interface to the engine, so like Java, it (can) enjoys far greater ubiquity and stability from the quality of the underlying tech, than the language itself may deserve. So once again; popularity/stability of the SQL language is not (necessarily) exemplary of the quality of the SQL language. It's much more likely that it represents the value of the RDBMS, and the relational model (which I don't think anyone is arguing against), and the SQL language enjoys a free ride by being the only interface thats even offered. I mean hell, just read the article. It has trivially observable flaws in its design and semantics (like stuffing a 3VL logic into a 2VL language). EdgeQL may or may not be the optimal solution, and I'm not arguing (or interested in arguing) one way or the other on that, but I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that SQL's ubiquity shows its perfection, when it's so clearly imperfect (because those flaws are being very directly pointed out).
- 7y ago
ErwinSmout 7y ago
Better things have come up. See the projects list at http://www.thethirdmanifesto.com/ http://www.thethirdmanifesto.com/ .
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  but no-one is using them, so are they actually better? (philosphical question, also pertains to a ton of better options... I mourn BeOS)
  - ErwinSmout 7y ago
    The particular meaning of "better" here was "better at representing the relational model". If you want to believe that popularity is a measure or reliable indicator of quality, I can't be bothered with you. PS I have a worked-out example on my site of what it takes to enforce a business rule "no one has a salary higher than his manager's" in SQL (> 100 LOC) and in SIRA_PRISE (one single relatively simple formula of the RA to declare). You decide which is "better".
    - speedplane 7y ago
      Much of the comments (and the article) criticize SQL as being non-standard and difficult to learn. These critiques have been around as long as SQL has. However, there is a more insidious problem with SQL: it's all too easy to write SQL statements that have O(N^2) complexity. A simple JOIN can easily result in O(N^2) complexity, yet there aren't easy tools to identify these performance issues. As a result, as a database grows, things that once were executed quickly take forever. I'd like to see the end of joins, replaced with something that is more explicit about what is happening under the hood.
      - ErwinSmout 7y ago
        Your concerns are warranted. However. You are wrong tying the problem to joins. I remember an analyst who launched a SELECT COUNT because he was just curious about the number of rows in the table. No joins involved but users did suffer. Elsewhere in this thread I've seen the problem be tied to table scans, and that's also wrong. A table scan isn't a problem if it's a 5-page table. As Darwen often argued : why are people always only lamenting about those couple of tables with millions of rows ? Why should we deprive users of the power of relational algebra if their database simply aren't that big ? It's a matter of determining the cost of the data access strategy (regardless of JOIN/EXCEPT/what_have_you) and (implementing a protocol for) capping it at runtime (or earlier if possible). No need for language changes here.