On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:27 AM, erik quanstrom <quans...@quanstro.net> wrote: >> While I think SQL *really* sucks (besides smelling too much of COBOL, >> it pretends to be relational when it is not), > > your facts here are incorrect. clearly sql is relational, if you take > codd's meaning of the term. also sql as a language has nothing > to do with cobol. cobol, like fortran, c, java and limbo are > all imperitive languges. sql is interesting (and powerful) because > it is declarative. you don't tell the database how to do something > you tell it what to do.
I really didn't want to get into this debate, my point about COBOL was more about the archaic syntax than anything else. As for SQL being relational, C.J. Date and other relational database people beg to differ, but again, it is not something I'm interested in arguing about (and is perhaps a mostly academic argument anyway, although the shortcomings of pretty much all SQL implementations are all too real), but for more info I would recommend http://www.thethirdmanifesto.com/ and http://www.dbdebunk.com I used to really hate relational databases, until I found out that what I had been using all along were really aberrations of the real idea, which is quite neat and interesting. Sort of similar to the process of going from various (l)unixes to Plan 9. Peace uriel
