Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Igor Korot]

Dominick,

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 9:24 AM, Dominique Devienne  wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:42 PM, Keith Medcalf  wrote:
>
>> [...] The main problem with the JOIN/ON syntax is that to a casual reading
>> order is implied
>
>
> No idea what you mean here :)
>
>
>> ([...] ream of brackets [...]).
>>
>
> Nor what this has to do with JOIN/ON. Get off the anti-MS soapbox Keith ;)

For the "average Joe" the JOIN/ON" syntax is weird. So I have no idea why MS
does it this way, since that's their target audience. ;-)

>
>
>> TO me it is much simpler to understand:
>>
>
> I guess we agree to disagree on this one. To each his own. And both forms
> are valid of course. --DD

And if you need to filter results, you don't have a choice, but use WHERE...

Thank you.

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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Dominique Devienne]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:42 PM, Keith Medcalf  wrote:

> [...] The main problem with the JOIN/ON syntax is that to a casual reading
> order is implied


No idea what you mean here :)


> ([...] ream of brackets [...]).
>

Nor what this has to do with JOIN/ON. Get off the anti-MS soapbox Keith ;)


> TO me it is much simpler to understand:
>

I guess we agree to disagree on this one. To each his own. And both forms
are valid of course. --DD
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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Keith Medcalf]

> I'm not a manager, and I do have a few "computer skills" (I think), and I
> still find JOIN ON much more
> readable than the FROM-comma + WHERE alternative. Helps me "thread" the
> table join in my head much better.
> Definitely helps me "grok" a statement faster, so not syntax sugar to me.
> My $0.02. --DD

The main problem with the JOIN/ON syntax is that to a casual reading order is 
implied (you can see this, for example, in the Microsoft products that litter 
generated SQL statements with ream upon ream of brackets perhaps in the hope of 
influencing a query optimizer, but more likely to ensure the result is as 
unreadable as possible).

TO me it is much simpler to understand:

SELECT 
  FROM 
 WHERE 

considering that JOIN which is mere sugar is (and ought) to be treated by 
replacing it with a "," and moving the conditions in the ON clause into the 
WHERE clause.




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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Keith Medcalf]

> AFAIK, AS is necessary in UNION, at least on some RDBMS, to have the same
> columns for all UNION'ed queries.
> So in that sense, not strictly syntax sugar. And it's of course valuable
> to
> give good names to complex expressions.
> A good name goes a long way to make "code" (of any sort) more readable and
> obvious.

In all cases where AS is used it can be replaced with nothing (removed).  There 
is no distinct purpose for the string as that cannot be served by not having 
the string as (that is, search and replace all " as " with " ") and you will 
find that the only meaningful change is that the number of bytes in the 
statement is less ...

JOIN however does have one (and only one) non-sugary use:  it is about the only 
way to specify a join type other than a simple cross (or, where there is a 
where clause, an equijoin).  Most vendors have removed all the various "not 
included in the spec" methods that used to be used to specify these types of 
operations.





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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Dominique Devienne]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:55 AM, Keith Medcalf  wrote:

>
> AS is optional as it was "syntactic sugar" added to SQL [...]
>

AFAIK, AS is necessary in UNION, at least on some RDBMS, to have the same
columns for all UNION'ed queries.
So in that sense, not strictly syntax sugar. And it's of course valuable to
give good names to complex expressions.
A good name goes a long way to make "code" (of any sort) more readable and
obvious.

Other syntactic sugar include the JOIN and ON syntax and keywords.


I'm not a manager, and I do have a few "computer skills" (I think), and I
still find JOIN ON much more
readable than the FROM-comma + WHERE alternative. Helps me "thread" the
table join in my head much better.
Definitely helps me "grok" a statement faster, so not syntax sugar to me.
My $0.02. --DD
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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Keith Medcalf]

AS is optional as it was "syntactic sugar" added to SQL so that Managers and 
others with no computer skills could read SQL too, just like the overriding 
design principle of COBOL wasto be "so simple and english like that even 
management could understand it".  Having to end each statement with a period 
(.) was rejected because the period is already a reserved separator.  Other 
syntactic sugar include the JOIN and ON syntax and keywords.

If sugary coatings were made mandatory then perfectly legal SQL written between 
1972 and 1995 would all have to be recoded with the sugary coating, thus 
breaking backward compatibility, and this was not a desired outcome of the 
standardization process.

> -Original Message-
> From: sqlite-users [mailto:sqlite-users-boun...@mailinglists.sqlite.org]
> On Behalf Of Tim Streater
> Sent: Thursday, 11 August, 2016 08:57
> To: sqlite-users@mailinglists.sqlite.org
> Subject: [sqlite] AS being optional
> 
> Is there a reason why AS is optional, such that:
> 
>   select a b, c from x
> 
> is equivalent to:
> 
>   select a as b, c from x;
> 
> I agree it couldn't be changed now, but luckily I spotted that I had
> omitted a comma, before it was too late.
> 
> --
> Cheers  --  Tim
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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[John McKown]

That's the ANSI / ISO standard for the SQL language.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 10:02 AM, Richard Hipp  wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:57 +0100, Tim Streater 
> wrote:
> > Is there a reason why AS is optional
>
> Because that is what PostgreSQL does.  (Also MySQL.  Maybe others too.)
>
> --
> D. Richard Hipp
> d...@sqlite.org
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-- 
Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.

Maranatha! <><
John McKown
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Re: [sqlite] AS being optional

[Richard Hipp]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2016 15:57 +0100, Tim Streater  wrote:
> Is there a reason why AS is optional

Because that is what PostgreSQL does.  (Also MySQL.  Maybe others too.)

-- 
D. Richard Hipp
d...@sqlite.org
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