Lately I found the following additional language extension libraries
(making a new language called SQL sharp) running on T-SQL (the SQL
version of SQL Server). The extensions use the CLR runtime from SQL
Server to expand the capabilities of TSQL (but unfortunately not its
expressive power)...

For instance, the extension allows to program a compression or file
transfer protocol directly as a part of the native querying TSQL. The
solution has the advantage of bringing an additional tool that helps
limit the pain of SQL and/or the absurdity of stacking layers of
additional applicative layers to get a functionnality involving
heterogenous manipulations .

A case and tool for database practionners who promote data-centric
approaches to limit the pain of Client Server architecture blunders.

We had a situation where we had the simple problem of sending the
output of a poorly formatted SQL view to a specific FTP IP. As we
usually expect from mainstream IT culture, the initial response from
OO people was that the view needed to be extracted to XML by an object
extractor they had to code specifically for that view (argh!!! biting
my nails...), then the XML had to be finally reparsed back by an FTP
object sender which would send it it (argh again!!!). My initial
request for simply opening a port to get the customer to directly give
access to the view being denied for obscure reasons, I looked for a
way to ease the pain and discovered these libraries. Since the
compress and sendftp libraries were already *understood* by the
engine, it finally took me 5 lines of code to set up the process while
OO coders were (and are) still drawing ERD's to code the two classes
(XMLextractor and ObjectSender)../here

http://sqlsharp.com/

I thought some may be interested (there so few tools out
there)..Regards...

Note: I am not promoting this tool.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.

Cimode wrote:

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Everybody and his
brother saw how Microsoft tried to usurp the haphazard TML when they
were approaching a browser monopoly, I'm sure they'd like to try the
same with SQL but maybe competition from Oracle et al hinders that
(harder for customers to switch). Personally, I'd like to see them turn
SQL into an even bigger mess. Call me an anarchist.