Is it just me, or is Sqlite3 goofy?

[Magnus Lycka]

mensanator at aol.com wrote:
> What was Richard Hipp's justification for slandering the
> writers of the SQL Language Specification?

First of all, if you read the text you quoted and understand
English, you should be able to see that the author of the
text is clearly expressing an opinion, not stating a fact.

Calling this lies or slander is just absurd.

"the authors of SQLite feel very strongly that this is a
feature"

"The authors argue that static typing is a bug in the SQL
specification"

If you think that these sentences imply some kind objective
truth that could be claimed to be a lie, then you are confused
about English or logic or both.

 > Is there anything more rude than describling the SQL Language
 > Specification as a bug that needs to be fixed?

Using "waterheadretard" in a posting subject perhaps?

Seriously, this is the first time I ever heard anyone
being religious about the SQL standard in that way.

Also, while I actually find your statement about SQL being
a bug rather funny and fitting, it's not what Hipp is saying.
He's talking about static typing, which is really only a
detail in SQL and has no bearing on the relational theories.
Equality and inequality can certainly be defined in a strict
way regardless on whether it is columns or values that have a
distinct type. The use of NULL as a permitted value for all
types mean that SQL has already relaxed the traditional type
mechanism a bit. Python, Tcl, SQLite etc goes one step further.

To cleanse you from this affliction, I suggest that you
read Date and Darwen's "A Guide to the SQL Standard".
After all, these guys are seriously involved in the SQL
standard development, and they are certainly not very
religious about it. Among their claims you can find these
pearls: "SQL in particular is very far from ideal as a
relational language", "although there are well-established
principles for the design of formal languages, there is
little evidence that SQL was ever designed in accordance
with any such principles", "Standard SQL especially is
additionally deficient in a number of respects".

Many people have claimed through the years that SQL is
broken, and that Quel was a much better language, and the
only reason that SQL killed Quel and not vice versa was the
IBM backing. Richard Hipp is hardly being controversial
in this respect...