Why is the UPDATE syntax so different from INSERT? If I'm
constructing a SQL statement to insert or update based on the
existence of a row in some code, I have to have two completely
different cases to handle it. What were the SQL creators thinking?
What's strange is that I've been working
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
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 do that as well. Most recently I used that technique to
