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You're onto something with SQL here. It definitely should be a big part of this, especially for the querying data aspect. Of course, we wouldn't query over raw,

You're onto something with SQL here. It definitely should be a big part of this, especially for the querying data aspect. Of course, we wouldn't query over raw, database data, but over sanitized, secure views. SQL isn't everything, though. Be aware that such APIs, for security reasons, wouldn't allow you to modify some of the data in arbitrary ways, but require you to use special functions instead. Think of being able to query the number of upvotes, call an upvote function, without being able to just change the upvote count. Maybe a mix of wasm (as an imperative platform) combined with a structured query API? Maybe a programming language with something like Elixir's Ecto or C#'s LINQ? Not plain SQL, but an imperative language with the power of relational queries?

riwsky 6y ago
Your characterization of sanitized secure views as something other than data in a database strikes me as vitalistic (and dubious). The “communicate with code, not messages” in your first comment strikes me the same way: code is data, and data is code, and Wasm does nothing to change that. Nothing about making an interface more expressive guarantees one is making it better, and overspecification of user intent can make it much harder for the system to optimize execution. Even if we really do want imperativity: your upvote example, even including the security aspects, is easily handled using stored procedure support that’s been available in SQL dbs for decades. It is not unfair to describe that support, and its variants (eg postgres lets you use python) as “not plain SQL, but an imperative language with the power of relational queries”. Can this approach handle everything? No; it would be madness to try and build e.g. huge neural network models in SQL + some stored procedures. But it handles a lot, including your two examples, and handles them more compactly than a general purpose language would, and exists. Mind you, I’m not saying your general concept isn’t great. It is great, it is a great step. It’s just that distributed programming already took it, back in the 70s.

riwsky 6y ago

Your characterization of sanitized secure views as something other than data in a database strikes me as vitalistic (and dubious). The “communicate with code, not messages” in your first comment strikes me the same way: code is data, and data is code, and Wasm does nothing to change that. Nothing about making an interface more expressive guarantees one is making it better, and overspecification of user intent can make it much harder for the system to optimize execution. Even if we really do want imperativity: your upvote example, even including the security aspects, is easily handled using stored procedure support that’s been available in SQL dbs for decades. It is not unfair to describe that support, and its variants (eg postgres lets you use python) as “not plain SQL, but an imperative language with the power of relational queries”. Can this approach handle everything? No; it would be madness to try and build e.g. huge neural network models in SQL + some stored procedures. But it handles a lot, including your two examples, and handles them more compactly than a general purpose language would, and exists. Mind you, I’m not saying your general concept isn’t great. It is great, it is a great step. It’s just that distributed programming already took it, back in the 70s.