Relational is more than SQL

Post by totalhack » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #98

snthpy wrote: post #12

Disclaimer: I'm a core contributor to PRQL [1] and post about it a lot on HN. Apologies for jumping in on other people's threads, but for people interested in the headline, PRQL might be of interest. At PRQL[1] we believe that SQL is a combination of two things: 1. Relational Algebra, which is eternal because it's just maths, and 2. A language designed in the 70s that looks like COBOL. When people say that SQL will n…

SQL will never die for the same reason that JavaScript will never die: because it's built in to all major database engines. In both cases, any other language will be starting as a second class citizen that has to compile to SQL/JS. During this phase of a new language's lifetime, it is either a surface-level syntactic change (a la Coffeescript) that provides no objective improvement, or it has to compile its simple se…

Post by maximilianroos » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

wackget wrote: post #87

ttfkam wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The syntax comparison section will likely sour a lot of viewers who already know SQL. You try too hard to highlight how easy and terse PRQL is by putting comma-separated items on their own lines but in SQL you put each item on separate lines. It may be typical of many SQL users and formatters, but it leaves a poor taste in the mouth that you aren't interested in an actual comparison but in marketing. For those who al…

Yeah the syntax comparison is deliberately misleading. They style it as "4 lines vs 10 lines!" when it's actually 4 lines vs 4 lines. # PRQL from employees select {id, first_name, age} sort age take 10 # Misleading SQL SELECT id, first_name, age FROM employees ORDER BY age LIMIT 10 # Actual SQL SELECT id, first_name, age FROM employees ORDER BY age LIMIT 10 The join example is similarly deceptive: # PRQL from employe…

Post by biglyburrito » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

sebastianz wrote: post #93

wackget wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the syntax comparison is deliberately misleading. They style it as "4 lines vs 10 lines!" when it's actually 4 lines vs 4 lines. # PRQL from employees select {id, first_name, age} sort age take 10 # Misleading SQL SELECT id, first_name, age FROM employees ORDER BY age LIMIT 10 # Actual SQL SELECT id, first_name, age FROM employees ORDER BY age LIMIT 10 The join example is similarly deceptive: # PRQL from employe…

It is also (for me) quite a bit noisier and less readable than SQL. The join example has multiple different syntactic symbols, for no clear intuitive reason (= vs ==, {} vs (), side:left vs p=positions).

Post by maximilianroos » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #98

snthpy wrote: post #12

Disclaimer: I'm a core contributor to PRQL [1] and post about it a lot on HN. Apologies for jumping in on other people's threads, but for people interested in the headline, PRQL might be of interest. At PRQL[1] we believe that SQL is a combination of two things: 1. Relational Algebra, which is eternal because it's just maths, and 2. A language designed in the 70s that looks like COBOL. When people say that SQL will n…

SQL will never die for the same reason that JavaScript will never die: because it's built in to all major database engines. In both cases, any other language will be starting as a second class citizen that has to compile to SQL/JS. During this phase of a new language's lifetime, it is either a surface-level syntactic change (a la Coffeescript) that provides no objective improvement, or it has to compile its simple se…

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

maximilianroos wrote: post #117

lolinder wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SQL will never die for the same reason that JavaScript will never die: because it's built in to all major database engines. In both cases, any other language will be starting as a second class citizen that has to compile to SQL/JS. During this phase of a new language's lifetime, it is either a surface-level syntactic change (a la Coffeescript) that provides no objective improvement, or it has to compile its simple se…

[PRQL dev here] I agree with the sentiments, even if not the conclusion. SQL is omnipresent and is "fine" in a lot of cases. TypeScript is indeed a great example of the case; Kotlin too. I'd also add that databases are already adding PRQL support — ClickHouse has native support, there's a DuckDB extension, and folks are working on a Postgres extension. One thing I'll respectfully disagree with — "SQL is highly static…