Comparing SQL to JavaScript or Ruby is like comparing apples to oranges. They have completely different purposes and applications. Rather, it would make more se

Comparing SQL to JavaScript or Ruby is like comparing apples to oranges. They have completely different purposes and applications. Rather, it would make more sense to compare SQL to MySQL (or any other derivative). It's like comparing BASIC to QBASIC. I would argue that SQL itself isn't very crufty. Rather, it's fairly simple and well thought out since it's based on many years of thought and consideration from the creators of the relational database model. E.F. Codd, for one, wrote at length about how these models can work for years before SQL appeared, refining the concept for maybe a decade afterwards. His goal was to make a system that made it easy for developers to store and request information with as little redundancy as needed. Vendors and developers of database systems have implemented various functions and features that expand on or alter SQL, but those are reflections more on those particular systems rather than on SQL. For example, MySQL's GROUP BY does not verify if the extra columns in the selectlist are dependent on the group by columns, which is against SQL's definition. It wouldn't make sense to count that as an issue with SQL itself.