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SQL was designed by COBOL / NATURAL people and was intended to be used by "normal people". That was part of a larger movement at the time to make programming mo

SQL was designed by COBOL / NATURAL people and was intended to be used by "normal people". That was part of a larger movement at the time to make programming more accessible. Unfortunately (a) that experiment mostly failed (b) the resulting syntax does not compose well at all (c) the syntax does not represent the underlying semantics and mathematical operations well at all. The combined effect is a rather tortured language, as it has been extended over the years. However, replacing it is equally problematic because of the huge installed base.

rjmunro 6y ago
What is needed is a way to use something like the new language presented here against existing relational databases, preferably in a way that doesn't involve sending queries as plain text strings back to the database engine - query compilation should happen in the client library, and be sent to the database as some sort of bytecode. Support for this bytecode should be added to Postgres, MySQL etc, not some new database product. Projects should be able to mix old style SQL queries and queries written in the new language at will.
jacquesm 6y ago
> SQL was designed by COBOL / NATURAL people and was intended to be used by "normal people". That's not how I remember it. What I recall is that SEQUEL was the result of looking at how databases and set theory could be connected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd That had nothing whatsoever to do with COBOL or NATURAL.
- grandinj 6y ago
  There is a reason it was originally called (SEQUEL) Structured __English__ Query Language see the original paper at https://web.archive.org/web/20070926212100/http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/chamberlin/sequel-1974.pdf
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    I didn't say anything about the name. But you made some pretty strong claims about the provenance of SQL that have - as far as I know it - no bearing on reality. The groups behind NATURAL and COBOL had nothing to do with SQL afaik.

rjmunro 6y ago

What is needed is a way to use something like the new language presented here against existing relational databases, preferably in a way that doesn't involve sending queries as plain text strings back to the database engine - query compilation should happen in the client library, and be sent to the database as some sort of bytecode. Support for this bytecode should be added to Postgres, MySQL etc, not some new database product. Projects should be able to mix old style SQL queries and queries written in the new language at will.

jacquesm 6y ago

> SQL was designed by COBOL / NATURAL people and was intended to be used by "normal people". That's not how I remember it. What I recall is that SEQUEL was the result of looking at how databases and set theory could be connected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd That had nothing whatsoever to do with COBOL or NATURAL.

grandinj 6y ago
There is a reason it was originally called (SEQUEL) Structured __English__ Query Language see the original paper at https://web.archive.org/web/20070926212100/http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/chamberlin/sequel-1974.pdf
- jacquesm 6y ago
  I didn't say anything about the name. But you made some pretty strong claims about the provenance of SQL that have - as far as I know it - no bearing on reality. The groups behind NATURAL and COBOL had nothing to do with SQL afaik.