[Discuss] SQL discussion

[smallm at panix.com (Mike Small)]

markw at mohawksoft.com writes:

> I'm a software engineer and I am constantly confounded by other engineer's
> trepidation/apprehension/dislike for the common database. SQL databases
> especially.
>
...
> How much of this is a reluctance to learn SQL?

I think the answer is more in Kent's earlier quip about it reminding him
of Fortran (or others with different backgrounds might say COBOL). I
resisted for a time, but my smart alec response to that is, "have you
tried writing all your queries in lower case instead of upper?"  But you
can't deny there's a definite revulsion from certain quarters despite
how useful SQL and RDBMSes turned out to be in industry.

Suggesting it's reluctance to learn is just begging the question. The
people involved are generally more than happy to learn Python, Perl, the
Go programming language (off topic: is Go a real thing now or just a
recruiter bait and switch tool?), physics, you name it. Why don't they
want to learn it, why the revulsion? One programmer I worked with, who
came without SQL and relational database experience, expressed it with
frustration: "it seems like this should be really simple and obvious but
it's not coming to me somehow."  My theory is that it's like discrete
math as if expressed by an accountant. If it could somehow be expressed
elegantly (Tutorial D?), these people might like it. Or else if they
learned relational theory first and then afterwords learned the SQL
language and whatever RDBMSes they have to, as a means to their ends
since they're working for money and have to make such compromises, then
maybe they'd be okay.

How the recent NoSQL popularity fits into this, I'm not sure. Haven't
been exposed to that yet.

-- 
Mike Small
smallm at panix.com