postgres rocks in my opinion. But I still have a fear: triggers. It is triggers that blur what I view as a database - place for my data, with programming, which is to transform the data. There is no universal trigger language. In postgres, there are a bunch. The trigger code is not so pretty. In an ideal world, I would never use triggers in a db, saving that transformation work for python using pyscopg2.
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 11:10 AM, Mike Small <sma...@panix.com> wrote: > ma...@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 > sma...@panix.com > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@blu.org > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss