50 Years of SQL

Donald Chamberlin and Raymond Boyce published "SEQUEL: A structured English query language" in May 1974. It was a sequel (har, har) to their previous language, SQUARE (Specifying Queries As Relational Expressions). They later changed the name to SQL because SEQUEL was a trademark registered by the Hawker Siddeley Dynamics Engineering Limited company. SQL is based on Boyce-Codd Normal Form, a version of the relational model of Edgar F. Codd.

SQL is now an ISO standard.

I've been using SQL for decades, but I only first took a database course 11 years ago. That was my introduction to MOOCs. I've since taken a MongoDB MOOC, as well as many other MOOCs.

I've been called crazy for being an ORM hater, but I think SQL is just fine. ORM stands for object-relational mapping. The idea is that we have an object-oriented programming language and a relational database. These two models don't line up, so we need a mapping between them. I put my object in the database; I don't care about third normal form or whatever, I just want my object back.

This idea is pretty much doomed because of what is sometimes called the object-relational impedance mismatch. This is also part of what makes so-called NoSQL databases attractive.