Re: Classic trap : using SQL while not fully competent

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Adam Glauser wrote:
> Joe Pluta wrote:
>   
> > Then again, SQL considers SELECT * FROM FILE WHERE '1' = '0' to be valid 
> > syntax, so I guess it only follows that the WHERE clause wouldn't cause 
> > it to fail.
> >     
>
> I don't think this is really unreasonable.  Consider that any 
> programming language that I know of will let you say
>
> do until (true = false)
>     // something I want to do forever
>
>   
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the whole point of SQL is that it 
is supposed to be a higher-level abstraction.  SQL is a declarative 
language, not an imperative one.  In an imperative language, the 
compiler basically does what I tell it, how I tell it to.  With SQL, 
it's supposed to do a lot of the "how" for me, and so I would hope that 
it would catch more of these.

Heck, even the lowest level of languages such as C have things like 
lint, a preprocessor which looks for common errors.  I think it would be 
great for an SQL preprocessor to be able to check for the same sorts of 
things.

> If you can come up with syntax checkers that can capture most logic 
> errors (without any false positives), then to paraphrase (fake) Sean 
> Connery: "You're sitting on a gold mine Pluta!" :)
>   
Why now that's an interesting concept...

Joe