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No, SQL is what it is today because it was crappy in the beginning and no one managed to replace it. It was only a partial implementation of the relational mod
by g-b-r 2mo ago
No, SQL is what it is today because it was crappy in the beginning and no one managed to replace it.
It was only a partial implementation of the relational model, we could have been so much better had it not become the standard
- YuechenLi 2mo agoThe sad reality is that having something that works, even if badly, is better than having a theoretically elegant architecture that is not implemented. See JS or Linux vs Hurd for other examples. Ask yourself this question, supposedly somebody made the full implementation of the relationship model into a database engine tomorrow, will you use it yourself, and can you convince your company to use it in place of SQL? Again, I wish this wasn't the case, but I'm not sure if there is anything we can do about the adoption problem.
- veqq 2mo ago...but we've had full implementations of the relational model for decades, with great performance etc. It's just a query language. A DB can use whatever query language it implements. Just like JS, there were schemes before JS (including the working browser one before management made Eich redo it into JS), there were other languages used in the browser even!
- BrendanEich 2mo agoI never did Scheme in the browser, there was no "redo". https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/1997032329689346359 https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/1997032329689346359
- veqq 2mo agoOh! Thank you for correcting me. Previously, I've seen it described (including on Wikipedia) that you were hired to embed Scheme, but then they made you change it right before delivery.
- grebc 2mo agoIt’s a fine tool for most data storage/retrieval jobs. Crying about some theoretical relational model doesn’t do anything to further your point.
- g-b-r 2mo agoNo one cries about theoretical things