Re: The tragedy of SQL

On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 9:01 AM Rob Sargent <robjsargent(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > ORMs a function of poor development culture and vendor advocacy, not
> > the fault of SQL. If developers don't understand or are unwilling to
> > use joins in language A, they won't in language B either.
>
> Back in the day, within IBM there were two separate relational databases. System-R (which came from San Hose) and PRTV (the Peterlee Relational Test vehicle). As I understand it SQL came from System-R and the optimizer (amongst other things) came from PRTV.
>
> PRTV (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Peterlee_Relational_Test_Vehicle_(PRTV)) did not use SQL, and was never a released product, except with a graphical add-on which was sold to two UK local authorities for urban planning.
>
> So there are (and always have been) different ways to send requests to a relational DB, it is just that SQL won the day.
>
> Ah, lets not forget Mr Lane's favourite: quel

Sure, I quite like, er, liked quel also, being more mathematical and
formal. It's a shame it didn't make the cut. This is however a
telling example that standardization trumps purity once languages hit
a certain spot. There are many languages with dumb things that will
never get fixed :-). As they say, 'the devil you know'.

QUEL also uses idiomatic english for most operations, which I guess is
probably a contributing factor for developer resistance to SQL, since
native speakers are a minority of the earth's population. Oh well.

merlin