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I like the relational algebra underlying SQL. I don't like the clunky syntax, or the weak type system, or the lack of a good composition mechanism. Agreed that
by contextfree 16y ago
I like the relational algebra underlying SQL. I don't like the clunky syntax, or the weak type system, or the lack of a good composition mechanism. Agreed that HTML and CSS are even worse!
- metageek 16y agoHaving written a SQL->SQL compiler (), I can state that the language is a mess. I still like it better than the NoSQL tools I've used, though. () The company's product was, broadly speaking, a specialized analytics engine, with temporal features. The analyses were written in a dialect of SQL-92 (just SELECT statements, plus extra features for temporal logic and currency conversion), which I had to compile to PL/SQL and T-SQL to run as stored procedures.
- mcantor 16y agoBy "lack of a good composition mechanism," are you referring to the trappings of writing and dealing with SQL syntax itself? As in, "Ugh. I decided to change this join into a subquery, and now my @#$#% parentheses are imbalanced!"? If so, I agree strongly, but I feel like that problem could be solved by better error reporting on the part of the compiler. I dread SQL errors now, at least with Oracle (which I work with the most often), because they almost never tell me what I need to know. To a certain extent it's essential to the abstraction of data reporting itself, but certain errors are just comically vague.
- contextfree 16y agoNot really, I'm referring more to the ability to factor out common patterns and compose them together to make queries, etc.
- jfb 16y agoOr the lack of closure under composition. It really f-ing grates.