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#41
 
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Re: Declarative languages in (not so) common use, was Re: NeedEfficent Query -
11-19-2007
, 12:54 AM
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On Nov 19, 2:36 am, toby <t... (AT) telegraphics (DOT) com.au> wrote: [...] (when was the last time you used Erlang or Icon?  When was the last time you used [a spreadsheet] or OOCalc? ;-) |
(Disclaimer: Of course I am using a very broad brush with my list -
just trying to catalogue interesting 'non-imperative' tools, since
imperative is such a deep rut in computing culture... Evolved
languages frequently offer a mixture of paradigms. SQL itself is not
purely declarative either.)
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[...] /Lennart |
#42
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We are still waiting for the DWIMNWIS computer. I think it will be a long wait. (DWIMNWIS = Do What I Mean, Not What I Say) That isn't the problem. That is exactly what the problem is not. The problem is that a reasonable person (such as the OP of this thread) can write a query that says *exactly* what he means, and it still isn't good enough. He has to discover some equivalent but different formulation, somehow, by no means anyone can explain except by cataloging "tricks that have worked in the past and might continue to work in the future". That is exactly the problem in this discussion. SQL promises to provide correct results, ... The SQL standard, as I understand the situation (I haven't read the real standard, just summaries), leaves optimization or performance features in the hands of the DBMS products. [] To the extent that we have people that are Expert SQL programmers and unable to program in anything else, I would agree that this is a bad thing. Otherwise, I think your optimizer arguement would apply to about any programming language. No, SQL is unlike any other comparably widely used language because it is declarative. Roy You are saying SQL is the ONLY declarative language? I don't think he's saying that. He qualified it with 'comparably widely used'. No 'widely used' programming language is declarative (when was the last time you used Erlang or Icon? I am not an expert, but other things that I would consider declarative are: - makefiles (commonly used, but hardly considered a 'language') - grammars (lex, yacc) - regular expressions - pattern matching &/or functional languages (Erlang, Mathematica) - backtracking &/or inferential languages (Icon, Prolog) ...additions to this list welcome. |
Nice examples. make is a great example. Thanks.
#43
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We are still waiting for the DWIMNWIS computer. I think it will be a long wait. (DWIMNWIS = Do What I Mean, Not What I Say) That isn't the problem. That is exactly what the problem is not. The problem is that a reasonable person (such as the OP of this thread) can write a query that says *exactly* what he means, and it still isn't good enough. He has to discover some equivalent but different formulation, somehow, by no means anyone can explain except by cataloging "tricks that have worked in the past and might continue to work in the future". That is exactly the problem in this discussion. SQL promises to provide correct results, ... The SQL standard, as I understand the situation (I haven't read the real standard, just summaries), leaves optimization or performance features in the hands of the DBMS products. [] To the extent that we have people that are Expert SQL programmers and unable to program in anything else, I would agree that this is a bad thing. Otherwise, I think your optimizer arguement would apply to about any programming language. No, SQL is unlike any other comparably widely used language because it is declarative. Roy You are saying SQL is the ONLY declarative language? I don't think he's saying that. He qualified it with 'comparably widely used'. No 'widely used' programming language is declarative (when was the last time you used Erlang or Icon? I am not an expert, but other things that I would consider declarative are: - makefiles (commonly used, but hardly considered a 'language') - grammars (lex, yacc) - regular expressions - pattern matching &/or functional languages (Erlang, Mathematica) - backtracking &/or inferential languages (Icon, Prolog) |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datalog
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...additions to this list welcome. |
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