On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Francois Ochsenbein wrote:
> The SQL standardisation
> came only late, when it turned out that each data-base vendor implemented
> his own SQL dialect...
I am worried that you have a slightly rose-tinted view of what goes on in the cut-throat world of big business. The first standard was SQL89 (defined over the period 1986-89) which does not seem to me all that late. Quoting from http://builder.com.com/5100-6388-1046268.html written in 2002:
"For over 10 years, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), managed by the Department of Commerce, offered RDMS conformance testing. Six years ago NIST stopped enforcing the ANSI/SQL standard, rendering it ineffective and largely ignored due to a lack of accountability for compliance."
I have seen other articles suggesting that NIST was forced to stop compliance-testing because of pressure on the US Government from the larger DBMS vendors, who felt that it cramped their style to have potential customers know that they wilfully ignored the SQL Standard.
So I'm still not convinced that we need to worry over much about ADQL not quite conforming to the latest SQL Standard. At least we know that NIST will not come chasing after us :-)
-- Clive Page Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, U.K.Received on 2005-06-08Z14:49:49