On 2008-01-07, at 13:49, Jeremy Stephens wrote:
Why is the UPDATE syntax so different from INSERT?
Because the people designing SQL were devotees of the English- Likeness Monster. I've dumped enough hate about that on this list recently.
Though that probably answers the question of "WHY IS THERE NO UPDATE OR INSERT" that's bugged me like forever?
When I'm generating SQL I just maintain a list of columns and values (or a hash, or a pair of lists, or whatever is convenient for the language) and run it through a map/apply operation to generate the right syntax at the last minute.
I have to say that given the rest of the hate in SQL, this one hardly bugs me any more.
