On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Roy Williams wrote:
> (1) Is there a "standard" SQL that all the databases understand, somthing
> that is least common denominator, somthing not tied to a vendor? I seem to
> recall SQL92, is that it? Is it ISO or ANSI approved? Is there a definition
> document?
Roy
I'm sure Jim will give you a much more authoritative answer than I can on the question of standards for SQL and their implementation in practice, but just to give you an idea of the problems you might look at my analysis here
http://wiki.astrogrid.org/bin/view/Astrogrid/DBMSmathFunctions
of support for mathematical functions in:
You will see that it's quite hard to write any mathematical function in SQL in a portable way. This site: http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms/ will give you a flavour of other practical problems.
Jim Gray wrote:
> > As one who has watched language designers struggle for many years with
> > languages like Fortran, VisiCalc, SQL, and HTML, I have learned that it
> > is not an occupation for dilettantes like us.
I agree that we ought to be very wary of inventing a new language of our own. Can I support that with a quotation which I came across recently, and which I fear which is not far from the truth:
"Most scientists only know two programming languages: Fortran and Latex. They do their word-processing in Fortran, and their numerical analysis in Latex".
-- Clive Page Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, U.K.Received on 2004-02-02Z17:51:04