Comment by setr
7 years ago
There are other models as well eg datalog, but popularity is a factor of many things — a major factor with databases is that historically the engine is far more important than the language; you would expect users to choose an engine, and whatever language came with it. Which implies that the decision is on the producer side, not the consumers.
Which finally implies that usage popularity is not adequately explained by user preference, because you wouldn’t expect user language preference to have significant impact on the decision making process.
But regardless, are you also going to claim that C, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, etc were optimal in their respective fields, during their respective eras, because they held total market domination? Incumbency is one hell if a drug..
Bandwaggoning and deffering to the status quo is not argument for quality; there are too many factors involved beyond quality itself. Fixable flaws in the language have been pointed out and not been addressed in this conversation chain. Alternatives languages exist, both academically and practically; they don’t come alone. Its not a competition in a void, the ecosystem has to move together. This occurs in every aspect of tech (did you ever wonder if there could be an OS other than unix and window styles?).
Asking why SQL was never beaten out in popularity is a hugely different question from whether there can be a better language than SQL, with largely unrelated amswers(Oracle/IBM were hardly fair players in anything they did)
> There are other models as well eg datalog, but popularity is a factor of many things
The lack of popularity is also a reflection of how the string of next best things have failed to actually deliver on their promise, accompanied by the lack of a rational argument to adopt them instead of using a time-tested technology.
What time-tested technology are you referring to? I'm only talking about the SQL language -- not the relational model, not the RDBMS engine, not the drivers.
The SQL language is just an API to the total engine; the majority of its value derives from the relational model; the value of the relational algebra is not being questioned. Only the particular interface to describe the relational algebra.
The power of the JVM is not the power of the Java language. You can have other languages make use of the same power Java has access to by targetting the JVM, and as a programming community we accept that just fine (and we also accept that despite Java having many known flaws as a language, its status as a first-party Oracle interface to the JVM, and its position within the status quo, makes it extremely difficult to upend; but that hardly implies Java is some perfect language, as most HN users will trivially acknowledge).
In the same fashion, the SQL language is (ideally) decoupled from the RDBMS engine; it can be replaced. But in practice, they're not so decoupled, and SQL has been consistently the only first-class interface to the engine, so like Java, it (can) enjoys far greater ubiquity and stability from the quality of the underlying tech, than the language itself may deserve.
So once again; popularity/stability of the SQL language is not (necessarily) exemplary of the quality of the SQL language. It's much more likely that it represents the value of the RDBMS, and the relational model (which I don't think anyone is arguing against), and the SQL language enjoys a free ride by being the only interface thats even offered.
I mean hell, just read the article. It has trivially observable flaws in its design and semantics (like stuffing a 3VL logic into a 2VL language). EdgeQL may or may not be the optimal solution, and I'm not arguing (or interested in arguing) one way or the other on that, but I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that SQL's ubiquity shows its perfection, when it's so clearly imperfect (because those flaws are being very directly pointed out).
You still haven't explained why SQL in particular has ruled over its problem domain for over 40 years. For example, in systems programming over that same timespan we've had assembly, c, c++ and rust.
Why is SQL the exception to the rule? You talk about popularity, but its really a question about stability. Remember, SQL is not that popular, as the NOSQL movement and comments like yours prove.
> For example, in systems programming over that same timespan we've had assembly, c, c++ and rust.
I don't think you've picked a very good example here of a field where the lingua franca has progressed over time. C still dominates nearly all systems programming, against all odds. It dominates operating system development, driver development, embedded systems development, pretty much anything that demands an extremely high degree of efficiency.
I agree with your overall point regarding SQL and its superior stability, but C is an example of where popularity won out against many better options over time. It's not like Rust was the first mainstream attempt to create safer languages for systems development either. There's been many over the years designed to fill the same niche, with more modern features, tools and goals. For better or worse, C still dominates the landscape for reasons entirely independent of whether or not it was truly the best tool for the every task.
Also, I'd contend that your claim regarding the popularity of NoSQL is incorrect. If you only talk to web developers writing Javascript, you'd get the impression that NoSQL is taking over the world. But the reality is that amongst pretty much every other demographic, SQL is still highly regarded as the ideal technology.
>You still haven't explained why SQL in particular has ruled over its problem domain for over 40 years
Well yes, because I argued that it was irrelevant to the original question: can SQL be improved?
Additionally I actually did address the question of SQL’s stability, at least partially: it’s not SQL thats so stable, but the relational model. SQL just happened to be IBM’s, and IBM was highly successful pushing its DB around, and Oracle (kind-of) cloned it to push their DB around with less contention, and so it went on. But its the RDBMS engine that primarily pushes a DB’s value; The SQL language is a ride-along.
And once more to be clear: its longevity is not a result of SQL’s quality, but the quality of the relational model. Thus its popularity, and stability (its also not that stable, in that its heavily extended by everyone in arbitrary fashion), is irrelevant to the original question.
>SQL is not that popular, as the NOSQL movement
If people are trying to make use of NoSQL because they want to avoid the SQL language (not the relational model), they’ve made a grave mistake in understanding their technologies; I don’t think such a naive opinion should be considered relevant to the equation.
If they’ve chosen NoSQL to avoid the relational model, then their choice says nothing about the SQL language.
I think the historical truth is that Oracle was first to market, and IBM just adopted SQL so it would not risk being waaaaaaaaay too late to the market "party". [Darwen, "Why are there no relational DBMS's"]
> If people are trying to make use of NoSQL because they want to avoid the SQL language (not the relational model), they’ve made a grave mistake in understanding their technologies; I don’t think such a naive opinion should be considered relevant to the equation.
Yes, they are trying to avoid the relational model by avoiding SQL because SQL has basically been the face of the relational model for 40 years. if there was something better, they'd use that. Nothing better has come up, and i don't know why either.