Re: The joy of Ada

On 10/27/24 5:30 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 27 Oct 2024 09:46:15 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
 

I never bothered learning the more arcane side of SQL because if I ever
managed to get the query right, it was always so abysmally slow that it
was quicker to use a series of simple queries and join them together in
application code rather than SQL

 I have found quite the opposite. Remember that, the more information you
put in the query up front, the more clues you give to the query optimizer.

   Long back I did extensive development on a PICK-OS based DB
   called 'Revelation'. It DID do an early version of SQL. It
   was used for over a decade.
   HOWEVER you never used the SQL beyond the top-level selections
   because it was too slow. Thereafter you used the "advanced"
   functions - hidden in the back of the manuals - to access the
   indexes and sorting routines and such - because they were ten
   or even 100 times quicker.
   Oh, they still sell 'Revelation' - DOS based - for about
   $300 ... but no support. Nice really, integrated WYSIWYG
   text-screen form builder too.
   Yes you CAN build a sophisticated query using SQL - but
   the syntax is TERRIBLE, hyper-prone to error, oft just
   un-readable - and the speed is still bad. Intelligently
   join yer OWN damned sets with proper code.