From: John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondanger@...>
Date: 2007-03-22T01:01:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science

Ok, if you say so. Let's call it a describing language, but  
operations like AUTO INCREMENT seem an awful lot like programming. I  
guess we have to say Ruby is not a programming language either. It is  
a scripting language.
hmm...
many sources do describe (no pun intended) SQL as a declarative  
programming language. It isn't 'Turing complete' because it can't  
create an infinite loop. Big deal.
That's academic nitpicking.

On Mar 22, 2007, at 12:20 AM, Robert Klemme wrote:

> On 20.03.2007 17:55, John Joyce wrote:
>> I would argue that part of the problem is SQL being very unlike  
>> any non-database programming language.
>
> That may be because SQL is not a programming language although it  
> is often mistaken for one.  SQL, more precisely the query part of  
> it, *describes* data sets via set operations.
>
> Although there are declarative languages around (IIRC Prolog is one  
> of them) most programming languages are procedural (even OO  
> languages) and so people tend to expect SQL to be similar.
>
> Kind regards
>
> 	robert
>