On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 2:53 AM, Eden Cardim <e...@insoli.de> wrote: > >>>>> "Craig" == Craig Ringer <ring...@ringerc.id.au> writes: > > Craig> I just wish they hadn't written it backwards! > > Craig> It'd be much less confusing were it formulated as something > Craig> like: > > Craig> SELECT FROM thetable WHERE first_letter > 'a' RESULTS > Craig> left(value,1) AS first_letter > > Craig> or something, where the order is more obvious. I really > Craig> dislike the way SQL is written not-quite-backwards. > > It's not "written backwards", it's plain natural language semantics: > "give me the first letter of all records where the first letter is > greater than a". Refining a set is better done walking from the more > general set to a subset, not the other way around, IMO: "give me all > persons that are females and over the age of 20". Mathematical set > builder notation does this in a similar fashion, for the same reason. > > Natural language semantics will get you into trouble though. After all, I think Lisp follows natural language semantics remarkably closely if your natural language is Irish Gaelic....
Best Wishes, Chris Travers
