For years, those of us working with databases have been living in a fragmented world. IBM has its System R and SQL/DS, Oracle has its own flavor, and Relational Technology has INGRES. If you wanted to move an application from one database to another, you were basically looking at a total rewrite of your data access layer.
But this year, things changed. ANSI has finally published the first official standard for the Structured Query Language: SQL-86.
The Power of Declarative Queries
The brilliance of SQL is that it's declarative. You tell the database what you want, not how to get it. This is a massive shift from the navigational databases (like IMS) we used to struggle with.
-- A standard SQL-86 query
SELECT NAME, SALARY
FROM EMPLOYEES
WHERE DEPARTMENT = 'Engineering'
AND SALARY > 40000;
It looks simple, but behind the scenes, the database engine is responsible for optimizing the join and finding the best path to the data.
What's Missing?
Of course, being a first attempt, SQL-86 is a bit sparse. It lacks many things we've come to expect from our proprietary dialects. There’s no standard for schema modification (no ALTER TABLE), and the error handling is... well, let's just say it's "minimal." Each vendor still has their own way of handling things like primary keys and referential integrity.
The Relational Future
Despite its limitations, SQL-86 is the "shot heard 'round the world" for the relational model. It signals to the industry that relational databases are ready for the mainstream. We're finally moving away from proprietary lock-in and toward a world where data is a first-class citizen.
I expect the standard will grow rapidly. We need better ways to handle transactions and more complex data types. But for now, having a common syntax for basic queries is a victory for every developer who’s ever had to port a database application.
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