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Comment on Is there something better than SQL?

SQL has been around and evolving since the 70s. It is an ISO/IEC standard and is portable across a multitude of databases.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL

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sip@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
portable, my ass. excuse my french.

each system has it’s own dialect and quirks

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- lysdexic@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  each system has it’s own dialect and quirks
  
  That does not mean that SQL, as specified by one of it’s standard versions, is not portable. It just means that some implementations fail to comply with the standard and/or provide their own extensions.
  
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  - sip@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    sure, ok, but who uses only the subset of standard SQL in a particular engine just to call his queri3s portable? most of the good stuff is unique to each engine and is what makes the engine stand out.
    
    it’s the same with C standards…
    
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  - Miaou@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Could also be that the standard is lacking in some areas. I’m not sql expert but I always end up using implementation specific features even for rather simple tasks. Are there really people out there sticking 100% to standard SQL? Hell, the biggest implementations don’t even agree on whether table/column names are case sensitive
    
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    lysdexic@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Could also be that the standard is lacking in some areas.
    
    I don’t think that explains it.
    
    If we’re talking about extensions that cover custom features then obviously those aren’t supposed to be standardized because they haven’t been widely adopted.
    
    If an implementation is missing a feature then that’s a shortcoming of that particular implementation, not SQL’s.
    
    If an implementation screws up and has non-compliance qwirks, that’s a bug in the implementation, not a problem with SQL.
    
    Take SQLite for example. It explicitly does not support static, rigid typing, and claims it’s a feature. However, SQL supports static typing and other implementations leverage that for performance and cost gains. Additionally, SQLite also keeps a list with a summary of all the SQL features it purposely does not implement.
    
    SQLite is pretty popular. Does this mean SQL is lacking in any way? Is the SQL standard “lacking” because it supports ALTER TABLE foo ADD CONSTRAINT even though SQLite does not? Or is this a problem caused by an implementation failing to comply with a standard?
    
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