Re: Is SQL silly as an RDBMS<->app interface?

On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 04:36, Peter Childs wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2003, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 12:54:55AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
[snip]
> SQL is almost the worst standard I've come across. Its the
> computer equivalent of VHS. Its not readable by computer or humans. (Enough
> Flaming on to why I think this)
>
> SQL is verbose it often make you repeat your self when its obvious
> what you mean.
>
> INSERT INTO a (b,c) SELECT a+4 as b, c*6 as c from a;

Without a WHERE clause, would that "just" double the number of
tuples, or recurse forever?

> SQL has many different ways of writing the same thing for
> different purposes. eg
> INSERT INTO a (b,c) VALUES (1,2);
> UPDATE a set b=1, c=2 WHERE d=3;
>
> Why not
>
> INSERT INTO a set b=1, c=3;
>
> its certainly more readable and consistent.

That's debatable.

If fields b and c are the only fields in the table, you can say:
INSERT INTO A VALUES (1, 2);
When there's a dozen fields in table A, your method seems that
it would get pretty unwieldy.

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| Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net |
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