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Is there something better than SQL? (self.programming)

submitted 1 year ago by onlinepersona to c/programming

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If you're modeling relational data, it doesn't seem like you can get around using a DB that uses SQL, which to me is the worst: most programmers aren't DB experts and the SQL they output is quite often terrible.

Not to dunk on the lemmy devs, they do a good job, but they themselves know that their SQL is bad. Luckily there are community members who stepped up and are doing a great job at fixing the numerous performance issues and tuning the DB settings, but not everybody has that kind of support, nor time.

Also, the translation step from binary (program) -> text (SQL) -> binary (server), just feels quite wrong. For HTML and CSS, it's fine, but for SQL, where injection is still in the top 10 security risks, is there something better?

Yes, there are ORMs, but some languages don't have them (rust has diesel for example, which still requires you to write SQL) and it would be great to "just" have a DB with a binary protocol that makes it unnecessary to write an ORM.

Does such a thing exist? Is there something better than SQL out there?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Without a DSL for writing SQL, any sufficiently complex program will end up with string concatinating all over the place. Basically, writing a language with ZERO checks or highlighting or anything. That's asking for trouble.

But coming from Java, I agree that some ORMs go way too far.

[–] atheken 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It’s necessarily complexity that is easily encapsulated in methods.

If those methods are under test to verify their behavior, trivial typos can be detected instantly, without adding another dialect and more conceptual overhead to a project.

If those methods are not under test, then there’s a tiny bit of help by using a DSL if it can be compile-time checked.