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Why are developers so afraid of SQL?

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  • K Offline
    K Offline
    Kent Sharkey
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    Unconnected[^]:

    Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

    It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

    RaviBeeR L D Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK P 9 Replies Last reply
    0
    • K Kent Sharkey

      Unconnected[^]:

      Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

      It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

      RaviBeeR Offline
      RaviBeeR Offline
      RaviBee
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Shear terror? :| /ravi

      My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • K Kent Sharkey

        Unconnected[^]:

        Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

        It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

        L Offline
        L Offline
        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Because it sucks.

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • K Kent Sharkey

          Unconnected[^]:

          Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

          It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

          D Offline
          D Offline
          Duncan Edwards Jones
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          Time and again, I run into developers who**'''**s feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror

          SQL injection - the most terrifying injection of my adult life :-)

          Richard DeemingR 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • K Kent Sharkey

            Unconnected[^]:

            Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

            It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

            L Offline
            L Offline
            Lost User
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Kent Sharkey wrote:

            Why are developers so afraid of SQL?

            I am afraid of it because it's a three letter acronym and I have a fear of all TLAs. :omg:

            You can lead a developer to CodeProject, but you can't make them think. The Theory of Gravity was invented for the sole purpose of distracting you from investigating the scientific fact that the Earth sucks.

            1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • K Kent Sharkey

              Unconnected[^]:

              Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

              It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

              Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK Offline
              Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK Offline
              Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              Never knew developers are afraid of SQL - sounds me all wrong. In my schedule at college SQL was there every week...

              I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)

              "It never ceases to amaze me that a spacecraft launched in 1977 can be fixed remotely from Earth." ― Brian Cox

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • K Kent Sharkey

                Unconnected[^]:

                Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

                It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

                P Offline
                P Offline
                Paulo Zemek
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                To me the author of this text simply doesn't understand why people don't like SQL. He even talks about ORMs, but he missed the point entirely. Many developers don't have a problem with SQL. They don't have a problem with the programming language either. Their problem is the mismatch between SQL and the language they need to use and the amount of duplicated code. Without an ORM, the developer is going to write the SQL, then either use a DataTable (pretty bad) or a DataReader. If the developer uses a data-reader to populate an object (I worked in many places that do this), the developer needs to write the sql + write the code that reads every database field to populate an object. Also, any error when writing the field names will only be found while executing the code. In this sense, it is natural to avoid writing one of them if you can. And honestly, joins are stupid too. Most joins are based on foreign key fields, and there's only one possible join from one table to the other, yet developers must repeat all the fields in the "ON" clause. It would be much nicer if SQL allowed us to say "INNER JOIN otherTable" without having to specify the joining fields all the time, reserving it for exceptional cases.

                M 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • K Kent Sharkey

                  Unconnected[^]:

                  Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

                  It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

                  S Offline
                  S Offline
                  Swinkaran
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  I do like SQL :) - There is always very less to do with SQL. The worse part is dealing with ORM and the data access layer. In SQL on the thing I am scared of is Joins.

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • P Paulo Zemek

                    To me the author of this text simply doesn't understand why people don't like SQL. He even talks about ORMs, but he missed the point entirely. Many developers don't have a problem with SQL. They don't have a problem with the programming language either. Their problem is the mismatch between SQL and the language they need to use and the amount of duplicated code. Without an ORM, the developer is going to write the SQL, then either use a DataTable (pretty bad) or a DataReader. If the developer uses a data-reader to populate an object (I worked in many places that do this), the developer needs to write the sql + write the code that reads every database field to populate an object. Also, any error when writing the field names will only be found while executing the code. In this sense, it is natural to avoid writing one of them if you can. And honestly, joins are stupid too. Most joins are based on foreign key fields, and there's only one possible join from one table to the other, yet developers must repeat all the fields in the "ON" clause. It would be much nicer if SQL allowed us to say "INNER JOIN otherTable" without having to specify the joining fields all the time, reserving it for exceptional cases.

                    M Offline
                    M Offline
                    Marc Clifton
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    Paulo Zemek wrote:

                    Without an ORM, the developer is going to write the SQL,

                    ...

                    Paulo Zemek wrote:

                    yet developers must repeat all the fields in the "ON" clause. It would be much nicer if SQL allowed us to say "INNER JOIN otherTable"

                    ... Ugh. Anyone that is still writing SQL directly in their code should be shot. I'm definitely not an advocate of ORM's, but it doesn't take very much effort to put together a decent enough SQL generator that covers 90% or more of the use cases, based simply on the schema. Oh wait, I forgot. A lot of the databases I've seen don't actually have usable schemas defining FK relationships, unique keys, even primary keys that are non-data fields. :rolleyes: Marc

                    Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly

                    Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK M F 3 Replies Last reply
                    0
                    • K Kent Sharkey

                      Unconnected[^]:

                      Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

                      It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

                      P Offline
                      P Offline
                      PIEBALDconsult
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      Fear of SQL is a sign of weakness.

                      K 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • P PIEBALDconsult

                        Fear of SQL is a sign of weakness.

                        K Offline
                        K Offline
                        Kent Sharkey
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        That sounds almost like a Dune koan

                        TTFN - Kent

                        P 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • K Kent Sharkey

                          That sounds almost like a Dune koan

                          TTFN - Kent

                          P Offline
                          P Offline
                          PIEBALDconsult
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          Hadn't thought of that.

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • M Marc Clifton

                            Paulo Zemek wrote:

                            Without an ORM, the developer is going to write the SQL,

                            ...

                            Paulo Zemek wrote:

                            yet developers must repeat all the fields in the "ON" clause. It would be much nicer if SQL allowed us to say "INNER JOIN otherTable"

                            ... Ugh. Anyone that is still writing SQL directly in their code should be shot. I'm definitely not an advocate of ORM's, but it doesn't take very much effort to put together a decent enough SQL generator that covers 90% or more of the use cases, based simply on the schema. Oh wait, I forgot. A lot of the databases I've seen don't actually have usable schemas defining FK relationships, unique keys, even primary keys that are non-data fields. :rolleyes: Marc

                            Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly

                            Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK Offline
                            Kornfeld Eliyahu PeterK Offline
                            Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            We use a lot of SQL - of course, but there is no a single line of it in the code. When I want some data I load an entity (not of .NET but using a 2 decade old idea of our own) identifying it by it's name and passing it some parameters. The entity itself was created by a home-made ORM like tool and saved in the database itself...No SQL whatsoever in code!

                            I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)

                            "It never ceases to amaze me that a spacecraft launched in 1977 can be fixed remotely from Earth." ― Brian Cox

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • D Duncan Edwards Jones

                              Time and again, I run into developers who**'''**s feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror

                              SQL injection - the most terrifying injection of my adult life :-)

                              Richard DeemingR Offline
                              Richard DeemingR Offline
                              Richard Deeming
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              Of course, it wouldn't be a problem if the author had used the correct word! :rolleyes:


                              "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                              "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • M Marc Clifton

                                Paulo Zemek wrote:

                                Without an ORM, the developer is going to write the SQL,

                                ...

                                Paulo Zemek wrote:

                                yet developers must repeat all the fields in the "ON" clause. It would be much nicer if SQL allowed us to say "INNER JOIN otherTable"

                                ... Ugh. Anyone that is still writing SQL directly in their code should be shot. I'm definitely not an advocate of ORM's, but it doesn't take very much effort to put together a decent enough SQL generator that covers 90% or more of the use cases, based simply on the schema. Oh wait, I forgot. A lot of the databases I've seen don't actually have usable schemas defining FK relationships, unique keys, even primary keys that are non-data fields. :rolleyes: Marc

                                Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly

                                M Offline
                                M Offline
                                Michael Pauli
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                Being afraid of SQL is a strange exaggeration in my opinion. The only wierd SQL stuff is all the inner and outer etc. joins. They are hard to understand. I feel better working with smaller blocks of code one selection at a time and the narrowing in of the data set. Linq helps us doing that. And after all developers loves Linq mostly.

                                Michael Pauli

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • K Kent Sharkey

                                  Unconnected[^]:

                                  Time and again, I run into developers who's feeling towards SQL ranges from slight discomfort to shear terror.

                                  It's all that SELECTing and JOINing: it reminds us of being picked last for team sports at school

                                  F Offline
                                  F Offline
                                  Forogar
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  Quote:

                                  JOINing

                                  Especially the INNER JOINing - I hate all that clique stuff.

                                  - I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • M Marc Clifton

                                    Paulo Zemek wrote:

                                    Without an ORM, the developer is going to write the SQL,

                                    ...

                                    Paulo Zemek wrote:

                                    yet developers must repeat all the fields in the "ON" clause. It would be much nicer if SQL allowed us to say "INNER JOIN otherTable"

                                    ... Ugh. Anyone that is still writing SQL directly in their code should be shot. I'm definitely not an advocate of ORM's, but it doesn't take very much effort to put together a decent enough SQL generator that covers 90% or more of the use cases, based simply on the schema. Oh wait, I forgot. A lot of the databases I've seen don't actually have usable schemas defining FK relationships, unique keys, even primary keys that are non-data fields. :rolleyes: Marc

                                    Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly

                                    F Offline
                                    F Offline
                                    Forogar
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    Quote:

                                    A lot of the databases I've seen don't actually have usable schemas

                                    There. You said all that needs to be said. :sigh:

                                    - I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.

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