[Python-ideas] Proposal: Query language extension to Python (PythonQL)

[Greg Ewing]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> PQL expressions should be quoted and passed to the dsl 
> processor, as done with SQL and other DSLs.

But embedding one language as quoted strings inside another
is a horrible way to program.

I really like the idea of a data manipulation language that
is seamlessly integrated with the host language.

Unfortunately, PQL does not seem to be that. It appears to
only work on Python data, and their proposed solutions for
hooking it up to databases and the like is to use some
existing DB interfacing method to get the data into Python,
and then use PQL on that.

I can see little point in that, since as Terry points out,
most of what PQL does can already be done fairly easily
with existing Python facilities.

To be worth extending the language, PQL queries would need
to be able to operate directly on data in the database,
and that would mean hooking into the semantics somehow so
that PQL expressions are evaluated differently from normal
Python expressions.

I don't see anything there that mentions any such hooks,
either existing or planned.

-- 
Greg