[postgis-users] Re: Database design book recommendations for the person who asked

[Chris Hermansen]

Hi Martin;

I guess that it depends :-) no seriously, on what the end-user needs.

Have you looked at Dee?  It's a relational extension to Python,
ostensibly based on D.

http://www.quicksort.co.uk/

I like the looks of it; it seems to fit both the relational model and
Python well.  It looks like it might help me scratch the urge to do most
things in Python, eventually.  Clearly you can write programs with it,
and equally clearly you can use it in imperative mode.  But I haven't
noticed any spatial operators, or any sign of indexing in general. 
Something to work on there.  And somehow I don't feel that it's going to
be easy to get at in Java...

But that comes back to the whole SQL thing.  I think one of the reasons
SQL stands the test of time is that it's versatile; I can get at my
relational data through JDBC when I'm programming in Java, or similar
tools in other programming languages.  The data can stay the same.

Replacing SQL with a relational extension to a specific programming
language removes this flexibility.

So that tells me that to replace SQL, we would need not only a better
query language, but also an ad-hoc query tool AND extensions to various
popular programming languages.

A lot of work.  And if it's not all done, then the language will not be
as useful.

So, I guess in summary, I don't have an idea of what's a better
alternative to SQL.  Perhaps a first step in finding out would be to
start preparing a list of Things That Are Really Hard To Do In SQL. 
This would server a dual purpose, first of telling SQL newcomers what
takes a lot of work, and second of providing a criteria for evaluating
SQL alternatives.

Martin Davis wrote:
> Chris, I'm curious - what do you see as a better alternative to SQL?
>
> I'm not trolling here - I'm genuinely interested to hear if there are
> clearly better alternatives.
>
> I've been quite interested in Date & Darwen's criticisms, but I felt a
> lot of them to be abstruse and nit-picky.  Personally I don't care
> about the purity of the relational paradigm, I care about being able
> to express & perform computation in the most effective way possible. 
> Obviously the declarativeness of relational is an important aid to
> clarity and power, but there's also some very ugly idioms which seem
> to be required to perform relatively simply tasks.
>
>
> Chris Hermansen wrote:
>>   I disklike SQL a lot
>>   
>


-- 
Regards,

Chris Hermansen · mailto:clh at timberline.ca
tel:+1.604.714.2878 · fax:+1.604.733.0631
Timberline Natural Resource Group · http://www.timberline.ca
401 · 958 West 8th Avenue · Vancouver BC · Canada · V5Z 1E5

C'est ma façon de parler.