Re: Dreaming About Redesigning SQL

"Alfredo Novoa" <alfredo_at_ncs.es> wrote in message news:e4330f45.0310130430.1f0886d6_at_posting.google.com...
> pobrien_at_orbtech.com (Patrick K. O'Brien) wrote in message
news:<m2pth33gj6.fsf_at_orbtech.com>...
>
> > > Python is a very low level language compared to SQL.
> >
> > I've already made that point myself. What you are missing is that
> > Python is also a very high level language compared to other imperative
> > languages.
>
> But decent database languages are not imperative. Python is a very
> inappropriate language for database management.

Alfredo, D is imperative. I think you meant to say decent database languages are not procedural.

> > > Lauri was not talking about trivial queries like "select * from A"
> >
> > Lauri made a blanket statement. I made a clarifying statement. I can
> > think of lots of trivial examples of a "standard SQL-query with
> > sorting and grouping and some joins." The "equivalent result" in
> > Python would not "require several pages of hand written code." I
> > stand by my original statement.
>
> It is false. A simple SQL query with several joins, extensions and a
> summarize would be equivalent to several pages of error prone and
> tedious hand written code, and of course the oportunities for
> optimization are lost.
>
> See the recent Seun's quote:
>
> "This was as I say a revelation for me because Codd had a bunch of
> queries that were fairly complicated queries and since I'd been
> studying CODASYL, I could imagine how those queries would have been
> represented in CODASYL by programs that were five pages long that
> would navigate through this labyrinth of pointers and stuff. Codd
> would sort of write them down as one-liners."
>
> http://www.mcjones.org/System_R/SQL_Reunion_95/sqlr95-Prehisto.html
>
> The Relational Model was intended to solve the problems you want to
> reintroduce.
>
> > Of course, I'm only trying to clarify the issues, not win a war.
>
> But what you are doing is to pollute the group repeating
> pseudo-arguments debunked decades ago. Your war was lost in 1974 and
> you don't want to accept it.
>
> > Perhaps you could
> > help me understand where you are coming from, and why you feel the
> > need to be so confrontational and aggressive.
>
> It is very anoying to read the same fallacies again and again. You are
> not very different to other trolls like Neo, Carl and the new
> incorporations like Dawn.
>
> > > PyPerSyst is not a DBMS.
> >
> > PyPerSyst is still in development, so I wouldn't say that it is a
> > complete DBMS at the moment.
>
> DBMSes are applications. DBMSes can be accesed by applications written
> in any language.
>
> > But I think it has enough features to
> > qualify.
>
> The problem is that you are not qualified for discerning that.

Hear! Hear!

> > You really do amuse me, Alfredo. Nothing is ever good enough for you.
>
> There are some good things (in the data management field). See
> Dataphor for instance. What will not be ever good enough for me is the
> reinvention of stone age discredited and obsolete approaches (like
> pointer labyrinths), ignoring all the research done on the data
> management field in the last 40 years.

Apparently, Patrick prefers bliss. Received on Mon Oct 13 2003 - 14:39:25 CEST