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I worked as a Foxpro programmer for 18 years. I later switched to the Clojure language for 8 years. I used the functional programming language Clojure as SuperFoxpro, which is very easy to use and enjoyable. I has formed a new programming idea ---- `Everything is Foxpro (RMDB)`. ;-)

I advocate: Building a relational data model on top of hash-map to achieve a combination of NoSQL and RMDB advantages. This is actually a reverse implementation of posgtresql.

[Clojure is a functional programming language based on relational database theory](https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow...)

[Everything is RMDB](https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow...)

[Implement relational data model and programming based on hash-map (NoSQL)](https://github.com/linpengcheng/PurefunctionPipelineDataflow...)

Excellent take. The functional model is not too far.

I didn’t really understand your post other than a high level point that you believe SQL is insufficient.

I’m not quite understanding the benefit of your example. I don’t personally want to write that style of syntax.

> you believe SQL is insufficient

I don't believe it, is insufficient, as a fact.

Compare

    let city = SELECT name
    let filter = WHERE id = @id

to

    let city = map name
    let filter = filter(id = id)
    let query = city |> filter

this is to show that SQL, despite being a programming language, can't compose well.

The syntax is not the point.

You can build full apps in forth or lisp (as examples of even more minimal Langs than SQL) but now consider the idea of build a full app in SQL. Without other language making the rest of their limitations.

You’re asking me to consider the idea of building a full app in SQL. I would ask you - why?

SQL wasn’t designed nor ever meant to be able to write a full app. You’re expecting it to do something it wasn’t designed to do. Because it is a programming language doesn’t necessarily mean it ought to be able to solve any kind of problem.

I personally don’t think SQL is all that great, for various reasons (lack of standardization with various dialects and their own gaps or abilities).

> You’re asking me to consider the idea of building a full app in SQL. I would ask you - why?

"We Can Do Better Than SQL"

And the fact that some can't imagine to build a full app in SQL (not as is TODAY but as could BE) is sad.

I live in that world before. With the base/foxpro familia's you can totally build a full app with a database language, in fact, easier than with python.

---

The point here is that obviously, SQL is not mean for programming, but do one-off queries here and there. But it not exist a reason to aim higher.

BTW, part of the laments of the creators of the relational model is that SQL have ruined, like COBOL, the mind of millions of developers.

>”And the fact that some can’t imagine to build a full app in SQL is sad”

You are outlining some general purpose programming language that allows querying, information retrieval, maybe declaratively or functionally or using objects? I don’t know - you provide no other details.

How expressive would this language be? What abstractions would it provide out of the box? How expressive is it? Your examples allow some code reuse via naming/aliasing specific clauses... is that it?

Specifically what apps would it allow someone to build? And what trade offs result from those decisions? Is it better suited for mathematical operations or data science vs building general enterprise applications? There’s a difference. Is it interpreted like SQL? Would it need to be compiled?

You’re doing a lot of handwaving, and when pressed for details, you respond with a thinly veiled insult - the problem is with the reader or me specifically for not being able to read you mind. We should take you at face value without question.

Good luck with that attitude in your career.

> You are outlining some general purpose programming language that allows querying, information retrieval, maybe declaratively or functionally or using objects?

Yes. That is the mindset in see how "Do Better Than SQL".

> How expressive would this language be?....

As expressive as any other. By coincidence I'm building a relational lang as side project but my post was more about think in how SQL limitations can be lifted.

If all is just "sql is only for data retrieval" then is not much else to add than just spice the syntax, maybe.

> You’re doing a lot of handwaving, and when pressed for details, you respond with a thinly veiled insult

That is not my intention. When I said "Some can’t imagine to build a full app in SQL is sad" I mean in general. I think that that will sound bonkers as say "build an app with xml" or similar. But the point of this post is about how be beyond what sql is.

----

A bit more details, now that you ask for more. My idea is revive the spirit of the dbase family of languages. There, you don't need ORMs, build a database app is alike build any other and the language was powerful enough to not need any else for the majority of their users.

The main abstraction is the "relation" that look at data not as scalar or simply lists, but as SCHEMA + DATA:

    city = [name:str, state:str; "Miami", "Fl"]
                  schema             data

and ALL the values are relations:

    1 //is alike [value:i32; 1]

Is similar to kdb+:

http://www.timestored.com/kdb-guides/kdb-database-intro

and allow to work in vectorized form as in arrays languages:

    1 + 1 = 2 //internally: [1] + [1] = [2]
    [1, 2, 3] + 1 = [2, 3, 4]

but where arrays languages only have 1 "column" of data, relations are 2d.

The next power is add the relational operators:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_algebra

And because all values are relations, everything can be "queried":

    [1, 2, 3] ?where #value == 1 //show [1]
    [1, 2, 3] ?union 4 ?join city.id ?sort #name
    for i in File.open("...") ?where empty(#line) == false do

etc. Is like LINQ? Yes. Where it differ from "just use LINQ, duh!" is that almost all languages are "scalar is first class, but collections not". Instead the relational model operate on sets/collections and all can be generalized for 0, 1 or many values.

All of this is without talking about storage. Is just a regular language with regular stuff. In my case I'm working in an interpreter, inmutable first, structural types. made in rust:

http://tablam.org

and my plan is use it for replace (embed) a lot of code made in several languages I have around and do data processing logic.

I wish to make it bigger, but that are my plans for now.

My case is for enterprise apps, because that is what I do more. But I don't see any reason to expand it. Implementation <> Language.

> I would ask you - why?

Optimally, you'll want to build your full app in a single language, frontend, data queries, everything. That eliminates every problematic interface where you have to re-encode values, verify types and other invariants, connect different runtimes, abstract foreign behavior, etc. (Somehow the JS developers talking about isoiconicity only cite code reuse... And the Lisp ones focus on metaprograming.)

We have a variety of good application languages, so it's a safe bet that one can create a not horrible one; we also have a few standards for IPC and some very safe literature on how to integrate them with a language. Foreign interfaces are always iffy, but it's also settle how to create a not horrible one. The most risky part is data querying, so it makes sense to start with a proven implementation here.

Agreed with the sibling. Large chance I have just missed your goal.

It may help to expand on your proposal. For example, what do you mean with group by, but not summarize? The group by clause says nothing about how to combine data not in the group. That has to be on the select. And I have yet to find a solution that beats ROLLUP for giving a great overview of data.

About the only thing that sucks on the current syntax is that it is not possible to get auto complete in the select, without having some from.

> What do you mean with group by/ ROLLUP

ROLLUP is not the same than groups. With

    [1:a 1:b 2:a]

Group by (as is normaly in other langs):

    [1:[a,b] 2:[a]]

Sql "group by" instead is for summary/tally of data:

    [1:2 2:1] //assuming count

ROLLUP is for make a nice report!

    [1:[a,b] Count:2;  2:[a] Count:1]

What SQL lacks (in this case), but the relational model not, is the ability to nest relations as easily as JSON.

----

Part of the deceptive power of SQL is that is very adequate and for "just query" of data is ok for most cases.

But as "programming language" it lacks some extra power and versatility.

> What SQL lacks (in this case), but the relational model not, is the ability to nest relations as easily as JSON.

SQL has nested relations since SQL:2003[1] (called multisets). They are not widley supported and frankly speaking I don't like them.

JSON was finally added with SQL:2016[2].

[1] https://sigmodrecord.org/publications/sigmodRecord/0403/E.Ji...

[2] https://modern-sql.com/blog/2017-06/whats-new-in-sql-2016#js...

This feels like a misunderstanding of SQL. It is not a programming language. It is a data selection language.

And group by does work the same as other languages. However, you can't talk of the group by without the select. So, if you use count, or sum, or max, or ..., Yes it will be a summary. You can use string_agg or friends if you want all values. But... Probably safer to get each as a row.

"We Can Do Better Than SQL"

SQL is a programming language. Is just too limited and that is why many can't imagine to use it for a full project.

But that limitations have no sense. The amount of code, time and efficiency that bring is huge (I know, I code in that kind of lang before) and is discussed in:

http://blogs.tedneward.com/post/the-vietnam-of-computer-scie...

In special look a point 5/6 of Summary. The irony is that we already have a "solution"(sql) to the whole problem, but is too limited and awkward to be used in practique.

I'm not sure why, but this post was hard for me to follow. The linked article is borderline incoherent to me.

What gets me, is even in languages where I'm not working with a relational database, the API for selecting data almost always drifts to something akin to SQL. To the point that I cringe if someone tries to force a new API.

> I'm very lucky that I start with FoxPro, so I know what is to live with a MUCH better thing than SQL.

For us who didn't use FoxPro, why was it MUCH better than SQL?

Because the poor formatting and example (making the code look too much as sql!), some nuance was lost. Consider instead:

    let keys = SELECT key FROM BTreeIndex_CustomerCode;

    let city = SELECT name;

    let groups = GROUP BY (whatever -- And I mean GROUP, not SUMMARIZE!);

    let filter = WHERE id = @id;
    let query = city + filter(id=1);

    for city in query GROUP BY keys
         ....