Re: Dreaming About Redesigning SQL

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Lauri Pietarinen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>>The "Little Languages" approach has tended to be more successful, as
>>it doesn't force everyone into one guaranteed-to-be-wrong-sized
>>Procrustean bed.
>>
>This is an interesting subject.  Now when I think more of it,  it really depends 
>on how complete this
>unified environment would be.  Is it possible to have a simple language that 
>does nearly everything
>you need?

They've tried. And ended up with abhominations like PL/1 (which is
actually not a bad language at all - it just suffers from trying to be
all things to all men, and it shows! :-(

I would suggest trying to become an expert in languages from different
FAMILIES. Then you'll see why it pays to be master of many.

Think human languages. My native language is English, my second is
German, and I also speak French and Russian. Adding things like Spanish
or Italian would be no problem - after all, they're all European
languages, share an awful lot of grammar and, indeed, share a lot of
vocabulary once you spot what's going on underneath. Bit like I'm an
expert in FORTRAN and C - the syntax is a bit different but actually
they're almost the same language ...

I learnt a little Khmer - an absolute culture shock. It was SO
different. If Russian can be a pig because the sounds are a bit
different, making it hard to hear, Khmer is well weird! Probably similar
to trying to teach me LISP - it's so different from stuff like C it's a
massive culture shock. But once you appreciate the strengths of both,
you also appreciate the weaknesses of both - and you realise that many
of those weaknesses stem from the underlying ideology of the language -
it CANNOT be "corrected".

So you learn to use the right tool for the job. Unfortunately, too many
people never learn that lesson :-(

Cheers,
Wol
-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
Witches are curious by definition and inquisitive by nature. She moved in. "Let 
me through. I'm a nosey person.", she said, employing both elbows.
Maskerade : (c) 1995 Terry Pratchett