Peter Eisentraut wrote: > On m?n, 2011-01-17 at 07:37 +0100, Magnus Hagander wrote: > > >> which, as Magnus points out, includes non-procedural languages (SQL). > > >> > > >> I think that "list languages" could be confusing to newcomers -- the > > >> very people who might be reading through the help output of psql for > > >> the first time -- who might suppose that "languages" has something to > > >> do with the character sets supported by PostgreSQL, and might not even > > >> be aware that a variety of procedural languages can be used inside the > > >> database. > > > > > > Fair point. > > > > Yeah. Procedural langauges may strictly be wrong, but people aren't > > likely to misunderstand it. > > The term "procedural" in this context originated with Oracle's PL/SQL, > which is a procedural language extension to the non-procedural SQL > language. From this came PostgreSQL's PL/pgSQL, and that naming was > then continued with PL/Tcl, at which point "PL/$X" lost its original > meaning of "procedural extension to the non-procedural language $X" and > meant more or less "handler for writing PostgreSQL functions in language > $X". > > Otherwise PL/Scheme will blow your mind. :) > > Think of "procedural language" as "language for writing [PostgreSQL] > procedures". As was pointed out, it's also a useful convention for > distinguishing this from other "languages", such as message > translations.
FYI, I always refer to them as server-side language, to distinguish them from client-side languages. -- Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. + -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
