Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cbatt!cwruecmp!hal!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Ingres: SQL or QUEL ?
Message-ID: <2263@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Mar-87 23:53:31 EST
Article-I.D.: ncoast.2263
Posted: Tue Mar 31 23:53:31 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Apr-87 03:50:34 EST
References: <327@turing.mcvax.cwi.nl> <1902@blia.BLI.COM>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.databases
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 54

As quoted from <1902@blia.BLI.COM> by billc@blia.BLI.COM (Bill Coffin):
+---------------
| In article <327@turing.mcvax.cwi.nl>, johan@mcvax.cwi.nl (Johan Wolleswinkel) writes:
| > 1. The `holy' :-) Date wrote, that QUEL was `better' than SQL.
| 
| QUEL really IS better than SQL.  There is a large class of queries that
| are easy to do in QUEL but quite difficult in SQL.  Furthermore,
| there are many queries, easy in QUEL, that are utterly impossible to do in
| SQL unless you do several queries using explicit temporary relations.
| QUEL has much more functionality.  
| 
| QUEL is made up of simple rules from which complex queries may be built.
| SQL is full of special cases, non-orthogonal constructs, and strange
| restrictions.  Date recently said (unofficially, to a friend) that he
+---------------

Can someone please mail me a description of QUEL, or a book about it from
which I may glean the means to implement a QUEL-type language on top of
another database manager?  (Prime contender is UNIFY; not only is their
SQL incompatible with ANSI SQL, it's even more restrictive; and, having
worked with UNIFY SQL and INFORMIX-SQL, I'm heartily sick of both!)  I
am also interested in evaluating whether complex data manipulation and
modification can be done with it reasonably easily and with little overhead
enforced by the language (INFORMIX-SQL will never do MRP).

A Yacc skeleton would be useful, but not required, as I can generate one
from a sufficiently detailed description.

A book on QUEL the language (as distinct from QUEL the Ingres programming
environment/etc.) would be useful only if a pointer to the publisher is
provided; no computer book stores around here want anything to do with non-
IBMPC books or UNIX fundamentals.

Thanks in advance,
++Brando

(P.S.  To the person who answered my last request for this with the comment
that QUEL is algebraic and SQL is calculus; maybe, but this isn't math.  SQL
is altogether too limited in its capabilities, due to its non-procedural
structure which requires complex manipulations to be done with a single SQL
statement or else eat large amounts of disk spacve and processing time.  As
for Progress, show me a version that doesn't thrash memory; I start up the
demo on our 7-meg Plexus and everything else swaps out!)
-- 
 ____   ______________
/    \ / __   __   __ \   Brandon S. Allbery		|      /^\      USS
 ___  | /__> /  \ /  \    aXcess Company		|     A A A  CHALLENGER
/   \ | |    `--, `--,    6615 Center St. #A1-105	|     H V H
|     | \__/ \__/ \__/    Mentor, OH 44060-4101		|     H . H    SEVEN
\____/ \______________/   +1 216 974 9210		|    /  |  \    WHO
________________________________________________________|   /___|___\  DARED
As long as there is the spirit to dare new frontiers, the dream will never die.
cbatt!cwruecmp!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery%case.CSNET@relay.CS.NET BALLBERY
	    (UUCP)                      (CSNET/Internet)             (MCIMail)