SQL Bashing - the Sport of Champions!

> On Thursday, 12 February 2015 17:23:44 UTC+11, James K. Lowden wrote:
> > On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 23:06:25 -0800 (PST) Derek Asirvadem <derek.asirvadem_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> > Thank you for your excellent post. I will get to the rest on the weekend

Now in that otherwise excellent post and ongoing discussion, I had stated:

>>>>
I am aware that the Dates and the Darwens of the world propagate a myth, that SQL is broken, and that you can't do this or that. Let me assure you that the myth is false, self-serving. There is nothing in it. In my three years at the TTM encampment, every so often, either one of the slaves or the slave master himself would post a "here is something SQL cannot do, here is proof that SQL is broken" article. In every instance, I posted a full solution using SQL (nothing but SQL), and proved such to be false.

I am quite willing to do that here. Please give me an example of what SQL cannot do. Re RDBs. <<<<

Evidently, the mere sight of the words:

> > ... SQL cannot do ...

caused you to entirely forget the context of the thread (Normalisation, the abject failure of theoreticians to Normalise anything) and the post, and to embark on the sport that is dearly beloved of theoreticians: SQL Bashing.

I was treating the difficulties that you were experiencing with SQL as a serious business, and I was offering assistance in any real-world situation (note "an example", note "Re RDBs"). But you slipped into the well-worn trench of your teachers, and you perceived the offer as an opportunity for attack on something that cannot defend itself.

The subject needs a separate thread. Before I answer each of your points, the context needs to be laid out. This is important because the myth has been propagated, over a long period, and theoreticians in this space (non-scientists) believe myths, rather than applying the sciences. The myth is held up by veritable pillars of clouds, and those pillars have to be addressed.

Context

1. First and foremost, I neither love nor hate SQL. It is simply one of the languages that I have to use in my work. There is no other language that exists for its purpose (data sub-language for accessing a Relational Database), or that can be contemplated as a potential replacement by undamaged humans, so there is no point crying about how it is good or bad or ugly it is, at doing what it does. It is what it is. So I am SQL-neutral.
2. In order to work effectively, I need to know that language really well. Although most of our code is generated, using an IDE or scripts that generate SQL objects, we have to know the language well, in order to debug errors, and to correct them. Guys in my position have the added burden, that when one of the developers gets stuck with "Hey I can't get this SQL to work", or "SQL can't do division", I have to blow his nose for him, and write it. So I am SQL-capable.
3. I notice that, in every new project, every new team, the starting position of many developers is "SQL can't do this, that is why we have to use temporary tables", etc. Which is false of course, they are simply ignorant, and it is easy to demonstrate the truth. But why does that happen, and why does it happen every time ?

Because they read books. Books that are marketed and propagated throughout the industry. Books full of poison, that cripple their ability to do their jobs, in terms of understanding and using both Relational Databases, and SQL. Therefore any treatment of this subject, the responses to the issues you raise, has to be levelled at the cause, the pig-poop-eating authors of such, and not merely at you, the messenger, the latest carrier of the cancer.

4. I notice that your charges against SQL are identical to the charges that the great harlot of Babylon himself makes, at his slave concentration camp. Hugh Darwen, also known as TweedleDumb. They are not original. You are merely the latest slave, the latest carrier. So you will have to forgive something: while I can normally contain myself (until attacked), and I have not been rude to you, in this thread, I will probably not be able to hide my disdain for the subject; and any such disdain or rudeness is directed at the source, the piggery, and not at you. I suggest that you take this post, something from the real world of sanity, and lay it at the feet of your masters, as an offering.

Analogy

So what do we have here, what does this "SQL is bwoken" myth consists of, what is the basis for each of the attacks (which I will address in detail later) ? What are the cloud-pillars that the pathetic cripples stand on ? The analogy that comes to mind is this.

1. We undamaged humans (excludes Neanderthals) have horses, we have had horses for millennia, we have a long history of using them as beasts of burden, to perfom work for us. Even after the animals were displaced by motor vehicles, we use horses for sport, because we want to, not because we have to. Eg. by the Grace of God, I have had horses for 27 years, and I have ridden a minimum of 40 kms every weekend. The horse is SQL.
2. A brain-damaged cripple comes along, straight out of the loins of the harlot. (Note that cripples can't ride horses.) But he has a long story about how horses are broken and severely limited, because they can't jump ten metre fences, or squeeze through a 20 cm hole in a fence, like a springraffe can.

The pathetic creature does not understand that God created horses for a purpose; that charging a horse for not being a springraffe is mind-numbingly stupid.

• Aside -- In another post in this thread, you have admitted:
  > I concede I was oversimplifying to some extent, and found ERwin guilty of not solving a problem it wasn't designed to solve, ...
  

Now see if you can be that objective again, see if you have been doing the same thing with SQL. All your charges against SQL herein are accusations re something SQL is not declared to do; not designed to do; cannot be expected to do. -- End Aside --

• Aside -- Cripples love to control undamaged humans. It is envy, a sort of revenge against the undamaged, who do have their condition. The special-needs kid on the school bus can't wipe his backside, but he sure can tell the bus driver how to drive.

Consider Stephen Hawkins telling humans about how the universe works. -- End Aside --

3. Unfortunately, the days of keeping people who are dangerous to society locked up, are over, the seriously deranged as well as dangerous criminals walk the streets and infect society with either their insanity and their criminality, damaging human society further and further. They make movies for us.

So we pander to the insane, the cripples. We ask the silly questions one asks of a 4-year-old who believes in the tooth fairy. We ask, on what basis does he think that a horse should perform like a springraffe, what exactly is a springraffe, why does he think it can jump ten metres. So it turns out, he has never seen a real springraffe, he has only a picture of one, that his maggot-ridden mother painted for him, the springraffe does not exist.

Wait. So we are reduced to comparing a real horse ridden by a real human, that can jump two metres with skill, against a non-existent animal that has fairy-tale capabilities. And we are supposed to believe all that, and answer seriously.

The list of items that the horse "can't do" isn't based on the declared capabilities of the horse; it doesn't spring from the capabilities of a real animal such as a springbok or a giraffe (which would be unfair, but understandable); it springs from the fantasy capabilities of a non-existent mythical beast.

The list of items that SQL "can't do" isn't based on the declared capabilities of the language; it doesn't spring from the capabilities of a real language such as awk or Basic (which would be unfair, but understandable); it springs from the fantasy capabilities of a non-existent mythical beast, a relational algebra as a database language (henceforth RADBL), a /D/.

Only a deranged cripple would mount such an argument. The source is the one percent, the theoreticians who allege that they serve this Relational Database space, who have produced nothing in forty five years, whose only activity is to damage the science that governs this space. The source of that source is the cancer-causing agents: Date, Darwen, Fagin, Pascal, Abiteboul, Hull, Vianu, etc. And all the professors who slavishly spread the cancer.

Argument

The entire argument is a Straw Man. Sure, it is an advanced form, a second generation Straw Man, like the second generation maggots whence it sprung, so those of you generally recognise Straw Man arguments may not recognise this one as such.

First, it is idiotic, self-sabotaging, to attack SQL. It is the only one in that space. There is no competition, and there are no contenders on the horizon. Get a good handle on it and use it for the purpose it was designed. Otherwise you can't perform your job function.

Second, use the right tool for the job. Use a combination of software components or layers. Do not try to get SQL to do things that it wasn't designed to do. If you do, it will be a miserable failure, and the fault it not "SQL can't", the fault is with the person who tried the idiotic thing.

Third, do not compare SQL with anything, except another SQL. No undamaged human compares a horse with a springbok or giraffe, and then faults it for not doing what the springbok or giraffe can do. No one compares awk with Basic and faults either awk or Basic for not doing what the other can do. The notion is insane. Whoever does that is entertaining the source, all the above-named, who are maggot-ridden.

Fourth, the horse; springbok; giraffe; SQL; awk; Basic, all exist. They are real creatures, real languages. We can assess them by various measures, we can compare them with others of their species. But the RADBL is a fiction, completely non-existent. The notion of comparing something real with something fictitious is doubly insane, acceptable only in very small children and those who are locked up.

Fifth, not only is the RADBL a fiction, completely non-existent, its capabilities are fictions upon that fiction. Not only is the RADBL ill-conceived, not-thought-through, many many serious steps naïvely collapsed into a single theoretical step, its capabilities, what it can do, has not been thought-through. It remains the dream of the dream, not the dream of the dreamer.

So it is triply insane for any human to mount such attacks, to use such comparisons, to propose that the horse is somehow lacking because it cannot do the dance of the springraffe, to propose that SQL is somehow broken because it can't perform the fictional dance of the fictional RADBL. That is for humans, they have entertained rotting flesh for so long, the maggots have entered the cranium.

If the source tried it, that would not be insane, it would be criminal, fraudulent, damaging to the industry. Because they are the source, the purveyors of pig-poop, the cause. The crime is worse that that of infected humans.

The second generation Straw Man is the dream that the Straw Man has. Fiction cubed.

Now if you do not understand all that, you will be tricked into catching and holding the Straw Man (advanced model) that they flung at you, and you will burn when they burn it. There are several layers to their fraud. First they have to market and sell the notion of the fictional RADBL. Then they have to market and sell the notion of the fictional capabilities of the fictional language. Then they have to market the notion that those fictions of fictions can be compared with capabilities of real languages. Oh, and that that one day, some way, somehow their fictions of fictions will replace the real language.

That requires serious mental enslavement, a strong and daily doses of the Kool-Aid.

If you do understand all that, you will be immune to such unscientific reasoning, to the cancer of the maggot-ridden sources.

SQL Bashing is the sport of champions. Champion cripples that is. Who have maggots in the crania.

Please take this post back to your masters, whence the Straw Man and the charges came.

Cheers
Derek Received on Wed Feb 18 2015 - 10:51:39 CET