Re: Relationals vs. Objects Databases I

>No, I really meant standard SQL. In the sort of work I do, we typically
>embed it in a standard 3GL such as COBOL II, which is quite capable of a
>few iterations and selections if needs be! Cursors tend to be used more
>often than pure set-based SQL.
>
>Adding this procedural support to SQL itself would be completely against
>the principles of relational algebra, with seemingly few advantages over
>embedding SQL in a host language.

This is exactly my point. You have written a program in COBOL and use cursors, a non-relational feature, to do most of the work. All that is left
for the RDBMS are some parameterised queries and joins.

I think a database programming language should be capable to to all of the work. Not some mathematical 'set' semantics thrown together with 'cursors' in a completely different language when some real work needs to be done.

Richard Received on Sun Jan 25 1998 - 00:00:00 CST