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I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and I may be completely off the mark but: Pandas, like SQL, feels like it doesn't compose very well. If you know some ba
by Pinus 5y ago
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, and I may be completely off the mark but: Pandas, like SQL, feels like it doesn't compose very well. If you know some basic programming language — including Basic! — you've got a set of building blocks that let you, at least in principle, implement any algorithm. But in Pandas (and SQL) everything needs a new keyword or method or something. We need a better way of expressing high-level concepts, but if I knew what that was, I'd be a high-flying professor somewhere, not an anonymous commenter on HN!
- mirker 5y agoSQL expresses programs via the relational model. Pandas is similar. I’m not an expert on the areas, but it seems that relational modeling is the best tradeoff between performance and abstraction. To your point, people did have a “programming language” for databases and it was called CODASYL. It died in the 1970s in favor to the relational model. NoSQL and other recent trends have similarly been criticized pretty heavily compared to relational databases. I guess the point is that SQL and friends may feel restrictive but alternatives sacrifice on performance or safety.