3 ms·

A better language than SQL in front of Postgres' careful and mature data storage engine?

by jfb 12y ago

collyw 12y ago
SQL syntax isn't great, but it is very powerful and good for what it does. What would you expect from a language improvement point of view? Its a declarative language so you can't expect a load of object oriented features. I found that once I learned to think in sets, the language doesn't bother me. There is a certain simplicity to it, that is fairly elegant.
- jfb 12y ago
  I would like a language more like Tutorial D; strictly set based (none of SQL's bags); without SQL's terrible, awful, no-good very bad 4GL syntax (I'd like something terser and more mathematical). It would be closed over composition, for instance, and would map more directly onto the relational calculus.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    Do you have any documents or RFC links about this language? I'm sure an specification is gladly appreciated.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      "Tutorial D", a particular pedagogical instance of a defined class of languages, is defined here: http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/Tutorial%20D-2013-05-23.pdf http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/Tutorial%20D-2013-05-... The requirements list for any "D" (that is, the definition of membership in the class of languages) is here in The Third Manifesto: http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/TTM-2013-02-07.pdf http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/TTM-2013-02-07.pdf
      - Shorel 12y ago
        And yet another name collision for the D language. It should have been Mars.
- br1 12y ago
  - Joins that know about the foreign keys already declared in the table definitions. - Structured rows to kill all grouping special cases and the distinction between where and having. - Hierarchical rows so that join(Planet, Person) doesn't repeat Planet columns in each returned row. Linq already gets you 1 and 2. See http://www.linqpad.net/WhyLINQBeatsSQL.aspx http://www.linqpad.net/WhyLINQBeatsSQL.aspx Xml gets you 3.
yangyang 12y ago
QUEL? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUEL_query_languages http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUEL_query_languages :-)
- jfb 12y ago
  Heh. Back to the future, indeed.
asnyder 12y ago
You can use most any language you want for Postgres functions. SQL, plpgsql, Python, etc, etc.
- yangyang 12y ago
  SQL is always the query language, though. You still have to use it with pl/Python, pl/sh etc.

A better language than SQL in front of Postgres' careful and mature data storage engine?

by jfb 12y ago

A better language than SQL in front of Postgres' careful and mature data storage engine?

SQL syntax isn't great, but it is very powerful and good for what it does. What would you expect from a language improvement point of view? Its a declarative language so you can't expect a load of object oriented features. I found that once I learned to think in sets, the language doesn't bother me. There is a certain simplicity to it, that is fairly elegant.

jfb 12y ago
I would like a language more like Tutorial D; strictly set based (none of SQL's bags); without SQL's terrible, awful, no-good very bad 4GL syntax (I'd like something terser and more mathematical). It would be closed over composition, for instance, and would map more directly onto the relational calculus.
- Shorel 12y ago
  Do you have any documents or RFC links about this language? I'm sure an specification is gladly appreciated.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    "Tutorial D", a particular pedagogical instance of a defined class of languages, is defined here: http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/Tutorial%20D-2013-05-23.pdf http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/Tutorial%20D-2013-05-... The requirements list for any "D" (that is, the definition of membership in the class of languages) is here in The Third Manifesto: http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/TTM-2013-02-07.pdf http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~hugh/TTM/TTM-2013-02-07.pdf
    - Shorel 12y ago
      And yet another name collision for the D language. It should have been Mars.
br1 12y ago
- Joins that know about the foreign keys already declared in the table definitions. - Structured rows to kill all grouping special cases and the distinction between where and having. - Hierarchical rows so that join(Planet, Person) doesn't repeat Planet columns in each returned row. Linq already gets you 1 and 2. See http://www.linqpad.net/WhyLINQBeatsSQL.aspx http://www.linqpad.net/WhyLINQBeatsSQL.aspx Xml gets you 3.

yangyang 12y ago

QUEL? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUEL_query_languages http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUEL_query_languages :-)

jfb 12y ago
Heh. Back to the future, indeed.

asnyder 12y ago

You can use most any language you want for Postgres functions. SQL, plpgsql, Python, etc, etc.

yangyang 12y ago
SQL is always the query language, though. You still have to use it with pl/Python, pl/sh etc.