Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!tom@nw.stl.stc.co.uk From: tom@nw.stl.stc.co.uk (Tom Thomson) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: A few "fundamental" questions concerning SQL Message-ID: <3217@stl.stc.co.uk> Date: 18 Jul 90 19:01:03 GMT References: <10632@chaph.usc.edu> <1990Jul8.034532.14777@sclcig.uucp> Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk Reply-To: "Tom Thomson" Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK Lines: 28 In article <1990Jul8.034532.14777@sclcig.uucp> gsn@sclcig.uucp (Georg Nikodym) writes: > >That's the IBM way, make something really ugly, terrible and cumbersome >and it magically becomes a standard. sigh You shouldn't blame IBM for this one. A very large part of what's wrong with SQL is a result of the american standardisation process: you could summarise it as "even if that's the best way to do that, we mustn't do it that way as it will give XXX too big a competitive advantage". So blame ANSI for this one, not IBM. (note: European standards bodies suffer from this too, it's not just an ANSI problem. The classical example is the ISO standard transport protocol, which simply incorporates five different protocols [derived from 3 different approaches to the problem the standard addresses: so perhaps it's just 3 unrelated protocols, of which 2 have 2 mutually incompatible variants] and says take your pick - - -omitting any one would have prevented the publication of the standard by ensuring a large NO vote from its supporters.) IBM gave us a big advance in query languages; ANSI emasculated it. Tom Thomson [tom@nw.stl.stc.co.uk [Note: above represents my views, not those of my employer. I still think SQL (even the IBM version) is pretty awful. I have no connection with IBM.