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People who get hot and bothered about that are almost invariably cranks, in my experience. Honestly I think you, being a database expert, don't fully appreciat

People who get hot and bothered about that are almost invariably cranks, in my experience. Honestly I think you, being a database expert, don't fully appreciate how bad the situation really is. Relational databases are almost universally not understood by programmers. Why? I think it might have something to do with the fact that programmers can't actually use the relational database as a relational database. They have to programmatically construct a string (seriously, wtf?) to do some relational processing "over there" in the scary database and then serialize the result and import it into a data structure in their language--the complete destruction of the relational idea. Using a relational database should be similar to using jQuery in javascript programming. The anti-"relational database" backlash is huge right now. And since most of the people involved don't understand what a relational database is they don't understand that it isn't relational databases that they have a problem with. Have you seen this new thing called Redis? It's "like a key-value store except values can be sets." Wait, it's a "structure server." Pretty soon someone is going to have the brilliant idea of letting the keys be sets also. I predict that within 3 years the anti-relational people are going to invent the relational database, without realizing it, and be amazed at how awesome it is. Because for the first time in their lives they'll be able to actually use an actual relational database. That's my database rant. P.S. As for the SQL != Relational people like Chris Date and Hugh Darwen I don't see how they could be considered cranks. Bitter old men? Maybe. But cranks? No.

silentbicycle 18y ago
Good point, about redis. I think part of it, also, is that a lot of peoples' exposure to relational databases is via MySQL and PHP, which is ... not representative. Most people don't understand why the N-normal forms are significant, etc., because they learned SQL from a simple "how to save and load rows" kind of tutorial, rather than learning it from the big relational ideas outward. (I'm a "learn how it works as a whole" guy, but I recognize that most people aren't.) If you don't know why they matter, it just seems like a bunch of bizarre busywork, and then you get lousy performance.

silentbicycle 18y ago

Good point, about redis. I think part of it, also, is that a lot of peoples' exposure to relational databases is via MySQL and PHP, which is ... not representative. Most people don't understand why the N-normal forms are significant, etc., because they learned SQL from a simple "how to save and load rows" kind of tutorial, rather than learning it from the big relational ideas outward. (I'm a "learn how it works as a whole" guy, but I recognize that most people aren't.) If you don't know why they matter, it just seems like a bunch of bizarre busywork, and then you get lousy performance.