Re: Efficiency; advanced/future SQL constructs

Harlan,

> There are some operations that are so obvious and frequent that I'm amazed
> that they didn't show up in SQL, and that I haven't read anything about
 any
> planned updates to the standards that might incorporate them. Actually,

The fact that seven fundamental statements (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, ALTER, and
DROP) cover thousands upon thousands of distinct application situations is neither an accident nor an oversight.

What it means is that, upon learning these seven statements, you have a tool that is quite useful in a variety of circumstances where relational data is to be handled.

If you had a different standard tool for each different situation, you would have thousands of tools, and, ultimately, a much longer learning curve. Consider the English alphabet, with 26 characters, versus the Chinese alphabet, with over
20 thousand characters. Which is easier to learn? There are, to be sure, some advantages to the Chinese alphabet, but ease of learning is not one of them.

--
Regards,
    David Cressey
    www.dcressey.com