Is there a language that does both what SQL does and general purpose programming?
Q on StackOverflow. And I suspect the answer is not Tutorial D.
- Have the many features of a language like F# ? SQL is capable of functional programming but what about F# features like pipes, partial applications, pattern matching, strong typing over primitive types ?
It's a surprise to me that "SQL is capable of functional programming". Perhaps the Q merely means 'is declarative' (although all those categories of PLs are a swamp of terminological confusion).
Good to see the Q acknowledges the shortcomings of ORM. Then there should be a straightforward alternative.
I see they don't want persistent storage, so an in-memory database would be fine.
A primary purpose of my project Muldis Data Language to exist is to answer yes to this thread's title. Hopefully I'll actually have it running soon.
On a tangent, I was inspired to create a Stack Overflow account for the first time today, to answer that question.
Interesting. Thank you for the tip. I've provided an answer to the question.
So it turns out Stack Overflow is not like an ordinary discussion forum in that moderators routinely just up and delete answers.
My answer, which basically said, I'm working on making the thing you are looking for, was deleted by a third party moderator without explanation, and was not rejected by the question asker.
I looked at the rules or reasons things might be deleted and could see several candidates such as "doesn't answer the question" but I'm not sure which was applied.
Anyway I guess they don't like "the thing you want is being made but not ready yet" answers.
I would have thought this would be useful to the question asker.
Anyway, Dave's own answer pointed the readers to this very forum thread, we'll see if its also deleted by a moderator or not.
In my experience that doesn't happen. Moderators are mostly pretty serious folk and just as brutal about each others' behaviour as they are on questions or answers they regard as in breach of the rules. The guidelines are here: https://stackoverflow.com/help/deleted-answers. Does that give you a clue?
I'm not quite at the moderator level so I can't see deleted questions and really can't help as to why this might be. All I could suggest is to rewrite your answer (making sure it really does answer the question) and see how you go.
[That was my answer BTW, not Dave's.]
Quote from Darren Duncan on November 29, 2020, 9:25 amSo it turns out Stack Overflow is not like an ordinary discussion forum in that moderators routinely just up and delete answers.
My answer, which basically said, I'm working on making the thing you are looking for, was deleted by a third party moderator without explanation, and was not rejected by the question asker.
I looked at the rules or reasons things might be deleted and could see several candidates such as "doesn't answer the question" but I'm not sure which was applied.
Anyway I guess they don't like "the thing you want is being made but not ready yet" answers.
I would have thought this would be useful to the question asker.
Anyway, Dave's own answer pointed the readers to this very forum thread, we'll see if its also deleted by a moderator or not.
In the pre-StackOverflow USENET days, a common comp.lang.* sort of question was, "I need to do <x>, what language is best for doing it?"
Answers of the form, "I'm working on language <L> that, when finished, will be perfect for <x>" were common enough to be a recognised and somewhat exasperating cliché.
Exasperating because the asker invariably wants a solution now and doesn't expect to wait a year or ten for <L> to maybe become usable, or (more likely) wait forever because the author of <L> has either quit working on <L> to do something else, or (even more likely) <L> was only ever a dream anyway.
Exasperating because the question is like, "I have a heap of gravel blocking my driveway and I need to move it now," and the answer is like, "I'm working on an anti-gravity fusion-powered space-ladle that will remove gravel-heaps at the speed of light. At the moment it can only make a faint 'brrrrr' noise when you turn it on, but if you'd like to try it I can send it to you as long as you're careful not to get near gravel or leave it plugged in for more than a few seconds."
Assuming your answer wasn't deleted for some more mundane reason, the "thing you want is being made but isn't ready yet" explanation has probably run up against someone who has seen this all before.
Thank you Dave and Dave for addressing why my answer was likely deleted.
I just made the mistake of treating Stack Overflow like a discussion forum where not-ready-yet but on topic answers were reasonable.
I was not aware of the longer term history where answers like the one I gave were common and considered akin to spam.
Quote from Darren Duncan on November 29, 2020, 7:19 pmI just made the mistake of treating Stack Overflow like a discussion forum where not-ready-yet but on topic answers were reasonable.
I was not aware of the longer term history where answers like the one I gave were common and considered akin to spam.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience there, Duncan. But yes, the moderators are pretty vicious -- on questioners as well as answerers.
For programming language topics, your question must be very narrowly focussed on coding technique or 'is there a library for this'. So I've had q's deleted because they were more speculative like: what would it take for language X to do this.
Likewise answers on PL topics must demonstrate runnable code or actually in-production packages.
For answerers, particularly on database-y topics (incl Relational Algebra), there's a troll who's taken it upon themselves to curate all q's and answers, viciously root out duplicates, nit-pick any informal language, and in general ensure answers are either deleted or so 'precise', long-winded and convoluted that they are 'correct' but impenetrable for anybody who doesn't already know the topic. I don't know if it was that troll who deleted your answer (as David says, mere mortals can't see). But in the past year or so, I've seen more frequent brutal deletions without explanation.
If it was that troll, they know you've been saying things like "Hopefully I'll actually have it running soon." for over a decade. So I think it would be reasonable to say that doesn't meet SO's criterion for a usable package. It is downright rude to delete your answer without explanation -- that's inexcusable. SO does pop up a message saying so-and-so is new here, please be gentle. The troll consistently ignores that -- or perhaps is incapable/emotionally stunted.
There's heaps of useful historical Q+A on StackOverflow, so it's a good resource for searching. But if you can't find an answer there already, it's pretty much reached the point of being useless/dysfunctional/soul-destroying to ask or answer. (That said, I have happier experiences on the Haskell-y topics.)
Quote from AntC on November 29, 2020, 10:52 pmThere's heaps of useful historical Q+A on StackOverflow, so it's a good resource for searching. But if you can't find an answer there already, it's pretty much reached the point of being useless/dysfunctional/soul-destroying to ask or answer. (That said, I have happier experiences on the Haskell-y topics.)
Every so often in the software development world, you'll run across an epically toxic individual who is almost insanely devoted to making the lives of everyone around him (it's almost invariably a him) as miserable as possible. Condescending, over-correcting, angry, obsessive, inclined to grudges, inconsistent, insulting, hyper-critical (but without any helpful advice) tends to be just the beginning of their unpleasantness.
Most large IT-heavy organisations have several of their ilk; small organisations have one or -- occasionally -- none, but if you're lucky, you can generally avoid them...
...Except on StackOverflow. Unfortunately, they all hang out there.