•

no.. just no

95 comments

Witchfire

•

Honestly more readable than a lot of SQL I've read. It even has hierarchical grouping.

somePotato

•

I was disgusted by the XML at first, but it's a readable query returning a sane JSON object.

Meanwhile, I'm mantaining Java code where the SQL is a perfectly square wall of text, and some insane mofo decided the way to read the resulting list of Object[] 🤮 is getting each column by index... so I'd switch to SQXMLL in a heartbeat.

cmdrkeen

•

React basically figured out how to make XML work.

Remember, XML was actually designed for use cases like this, that’s why it came with XPath and XSLT, which let you make it executable in a sense by performing arbitrary transformations on an XML tree.

Back in the day, at my first coding job, we had an entire program that had a massive data model encoded in XML, and we used a bunch of XSL to programmatically convert that into Java objects, SQL queries, and HTML forms. Actually worked fairly well, except of course that XSL was an awful language to do that all in.

React simply figured out how to use JavaScript as the transformation language instead.

leftzero

•

it's a readable query returning a sane JSON object.

No it's not. What table is the data supposed to be coming from..?

blackbrook

•

Check out JOOQ.

shotgun_crab

•

JOOQ made me realize that most ORMs suck

reimufumo

•

true, but having it look like a component might get annoying. since this is likely to stay at the top, having an island of non components between two components might make it hard to see where functions start and end. and if this isn't used directly inside a component it'll just look dumb and inefficient (this also looks like it'll take way more to edit once you change something)

bahbah23

•

I think I agree with you both. I'm not a Node developer; could you keep your SQL objects/components in a separate file so that they don't clutter up other logic?

doidera

•

Yes

jflorez

•

It is so readable that you missed the fact it doesn’t have the FROM clause

cmdrkeen

•

Honestly not the worst thing I’ve seen.

xmunk

•

I'd like you to think for a moment about CTEs, the HAVING clause, window functions and every other funky and useful thing you can do in SQL ... Now just think, do you think that this syntax supports all those correctly?

Primarily0617

•

sql syntax doesn't support even itself correctly i fail to see your point

cmdrkeen

•

Probably no better or worse than any other ORM written in a more traditional language. Worst comes to worst, you can always escape to plain SQL.

felbane

•

RustyNova

•

Ah yes. That's what the kids call "sqlx" right?

NGL, if it has real time code completion and compile time SQL checks, this is fine.

expr

•

Not only is this really gross, it's also straight up wrong. It's missing a from clause, and it makes no sense for a where clause to be nested under the select. The select list selects columns from rows that have already been filtered by the where clause. Same for the limit.

Also just gonna go ahead and assume the JSX parser will happily allow SQL injection attacks...

CanadaPlus

•

I like the format, though.

ReluctantMuskrat

•

Clearly you've not had to write and maintain much XML.

CanadaPlus

•

I have not. I just thought it looks less goofy than a nested SQL statement split over multiple lines.

What are the issues with XML?

nephs

•

Booooo

akash_rawal

•

I actually like this. This would allow reuse of all the infrastructure we have around XML. No more SQL injection and dealing with query parameters? Sign me up!

CanadaPlus

•

Assuming it's built well. As someone else pointed out, it doesn't look quite right here.

utopianfiat

•

So you mean like parameterized queries, which exist?

akash_rawal

•

Better than parameterized queries. Yes, we have stuff like query("INSERT INTO table(status, name) VALUES ($1, $2);").bind(ent.status).bind(ent.name).execute..., but that's kind of awful isn't it? With XML queries, we could use any of the XML libraries we have to create and manipulate XML queries without risking 'XML injection'. e.g we could convert ordinary structs/classes into column values automatically without having to use any ORM.

docAvid

•

I mean, that's just a bad library interface. With a halfway decent interface, you can do something like

query('insert into foo (status, name) values (:status, :name)', ent)

No orm required. With tagged templates in JS, you can do

q`insert into foo (status, name) values (${ent.status}, ${ent.name})`

Even wrap it in a function with destructuring to get rid of ent:

const addFoo = (q, {status, name}) =>
    q`insert into foo (status, name) values (${status}, ${name})`

Typescript can add type safety on top of that, of course. And there's the option to prepare a query once and execute it multiple times.

Honestly, the idea of manipulating XML queries, if you mean anything more fancy than the equivalent of parameter injection, sounds over-complicated, but I'd love to see a more concrete example of what you mean by that.

akash_rawal

•

I was thinking along the lines of

Plenty of libraries can build the XML using structs/classes. e.g. with serde:

//Data type for row
#[derive(serde::Serialize)]
pub struct Foo {
	pub status: String,
	pub name: String,
}

//Example row
let ent = Foo {
    status: "paid".into(),
    name: "bob".into(),
}

//Example execution
sqlx::query(&amp;serde_xml_rs::to_string(&amp;InsertStmt{
	table: "foo".into(),
	value: &amp;ent,
})?).execute(&amp;conn)?;

Or with jackson-dataformat-xml:

//Data type for row
public class Foo {
    public string status;
    public string name;
}

//Example row
Foo ent = new Foo();
foo.status = "paid";
foo.value = "bob";

//Example execution
XmlMapper xmlMapper = new XmlMapper();
String xml = xmlMapper.writeValueAsString(new InsertStmt("foo", ent));
try (Statement stmt = conn.createStatement()) {
    stmt.executeUpdate(xml)
}

I don't do JS (yet) but maybe JSX could also do similar things with XML queries.

No more matching $1, $2, ... (or ? for mysql) with individual columns, I could dump entire structs/objects into a query and it would work.

gravitas_deficiency

•

I want to hate this. I really do. But the problem is… I think I like it.

naonintendois

•

But how do I know if the WHERE clause is AND or OR?

akash_rawal

•

We can say default is and and add an Or node for or. Similar to SoP notation, you only write +.

victorz

•

How about an or boolean attribute.

gravitas_deficiency

•

Fair. The constraint nodes should probably exist under an And or Or node.

lorty

•

This needs a bit of work but it could be interesting

namelivia

•

When you are assigned to write database queries at work and your academical background is that online react bootcamp

Primarily0617

•

if you don't believe that adding more structure to the absolute maniacal catastrophe that is sql is a good thing then i'm going to start to have doubts about your authenticity as a human being

Solemarc

•

If you think this is more structured than traditional SQL, I really disagree. Is this a select * query, it's ambiguous. Also what table is being queried here there's no from or other table identifier.

QuazarOmega

•

Me trying to remember on whose output data having, count, sum, etc. work

Once you know functions you would have no reason to go back.
I propose we make SQL into this:

const MAX_AMOUNT = 42, MIN_BATCHES = 2

database
    .from(table)
    .where(
        (amount) => amount &lt; MAX_AMOUNT,
        table.field3
    )
    .select(table.field1, table.field3)
    .group_by(table.field1)
    .having(
        (id) => count(id) >MIN_BATCHES
        table.field0
    )

(Sorry for any glaring mistakes, I'm too lazy right now to know what I'm doing)

..and I bet I just reinvented the wheel, maybe some JavaScript ORM?

expr

•

Because you never learned SQL properly, from the sound of it.

Also, ORMs produce trash queries and are never expressive enough.

emptyother

•

ORMs produce good queries if you know what you do. Which requires proper knowledge of SQL, unfortunately.

QuazarOmega

•

Because you never learned SQL properly, from the sound of it.

You might be right, though, to be fair, I also keep forgetting syntax of stuff when I don't use it very often (read SQL (._.`))

Also, ORMa produce trash queries and are never expressive enough.

I meant to say that I would like the raw SQL syntax to be more similar to other programming languages to avoid needing to switch between thinking about different flows of logic

marcos

•

Well, if you lose the OOPism of those dots, we can talk.

Anyway, I'm really against the "having" tag. You need another keyword so that you can apply your filter after the group by?

QuazarOmega

•

Well, if you lose the OOPism of those dots, we can talk.

That's a good point, I didn't even think about it, maybe a more functional style would make more sense?

physicswizard

•

Boy then are you going to hate QUALIFY

marcos

•

Yes, I do. It's a lot of effort and hidden functionality to try to paper over the fact that the statements do not compose.

rubythulhu

•

having is less annoying way of not doing needless/bug-prone repetition. if you select someCalculatedValue(someInput) as lol you can add having lol > 42 in mysql, whereas without (ie in pgsql) you’d need to do where someCalculatedValue(someInput) > 42, and make sure changes to that call stay in sync despite how far apart they are in a complex sql statement.

docAvid

•

Postgres has the having clause. If it didn't, that wouldn't work, as you can't use aggregates in a where. If you have to make do without having, for some reason, you can use a subquery, something like select * from (select someCalculatedValue(someInput) as lol) as stuff where lol > 42, which is very verbose, but doesn't cause the sync problem.

Also, I don't think they were saying the capability having gives is bad, but that a new query language should be designed such that you get that capability without it.

rubythulhu

•

most languages have some first or third party lib that implements a query builder

xep

•

Check out Spark: https://github.com/apache/spark/blob/master/examples/src/main/python/sql/basic.py

QuazarOmega

•

Thanks for the suggestion! It looks interesting, not quite what I expected looking at that file*, but that may very well be better

Edit: other examples seem a bit more similar to mine, cool!

drathvedro

•

No. The arrow function in where eliminates any possibility of using indexes. And how do you propose to deal with logical expressions without resorting to shit like .orWhereNot() and callback hell? And, most importantly, what about joins?

GBU_28

•

Huh? Sql is one of the most powerful, action packed (as in you can move lots of shit with few commands) languages out there.

It's transferable and ubiquitous.

Primarily0617

•

powerful isn't the same as well-structured

it was written to be a language that anybody could read or write as well as english, which just like every other time that's been tried, results in a language that's exactly as anal about grammar as C or Python except now it's impossible to remember what that structure is because adding anything to the language to make that easier is forbidden

when you write a language where its designers were so keen for it to remain human readable that they made deleting all rows in a table the default action, i don't think "well structured" can be used to describe it

GBU_28

•

Disagree, the difference between "week structured" and needing to know the rules of the verbs is pretty big, to me.

cupcakezealot

•

but sql doesn't need to be structured that's what abstraction layers and models are for

Lem453

•

SQL is literally structured query language

expr

•

SQL is incredibly structured. It's also a very good language, and developers need to stop piling on junk on top of it and producing terrible queries. Learn the damn language. It's not that hard

mvirts

•

Remember kids, JSX is just function calls. It can't hurt you.

Thcdenton

•

Oh it can and it did.

kpw

•

The most offensive thing here is the amount={5} attribute. What is it? It's not XML.

ABC123itsEASY

•

It's a react component and that would be the proper way to give a numerical value in jsx

Huschke

•

JSX has grown beyond react, so without further context it doesn't have to be react.

MostlyHarmless

•

It's JSX. It's used to embed markup into javascript

sndrtj

•

It's to embed Javascript into embedded markup in Javascript

cupcakezealot

•

please kindly send all javascript into the sun and explode it

db2

•

That's XML though.. not that I'm disagreeing.

huginn

•

Not XML. JSX. It's javascript's answer to markup.

db2

•

Gross.

dukk

•

The worst of both worlds…

karmiclychee

•

It's like a weaponized grade of whatever they made CSS in JS out of

dan

•

huginn

•

If you put it into an XML parser it will throw an error, so it's no longer XML.

Sure it was based on it, but it's not xml.

adhocfungus

•

JoYo

•

still more readable than sqlalchemy exceptions

normalexit

•

This idea is bad and whoever came up with it should feel bad.

III

•

It never ceases to amaze me how far idiots will go to avoid learning the most simple things. SQL isn't hard, people's difficulty with it says a lot more about them than it does SQL.

emptyother

•

People think in different ways. What might seem logical to you might look alien to another. I know SQL well enough to optimize queries, but I find it a lot easier to think about and write queries as LINQ methods. A lot more cleaner and logical to my brain.

MonkderZweite

•

Neither is sending form data to the server without any JS. It's more robust too. Yet almost no form on the web works without JS.

BoastfulDaedra

•

I haven't been this pissed off since LINQ started allowing syntax switches in random-ass places.

Thcdenton

•

dylanTheDeveloper

•

Omg that's terrible! Link?

mlg

•

"HTTP and the Web is a totally reliable and easy to use internet protocol"

istoff

•

Is that select * ?

I expect it looks more cumbersome with joins and multiple columns from different tables.

adamth0

•

That's what I was wondering. It's doing a SELECT, but not saying exactly which columns it wants to retrieve.

leftzero

•

Of course not... where's the damn tag..?

//Data type for row #[derive(serde::Serialize)] pub struct Foo { pub status: String, pub name: String, } //Example row let ent = Foo { status: "paid".into(), name: "bob".into(), } //Example execution sqlx::query(&serde_xml_rs::to_string(&InsertStmt{ table: "foo".into(), value: &ent, })?).execute(&conn)?;

//Data type for row public class Foo { public string status; public string name; } //Example row Foo ent = new Foo(); foo.status = "paid"; foo.value = "bob"; //Example execution XmlMapper xmlMapper = new XmlMapper(); String xml = xmlMapper.writeValueAsString(new InsertStmt("foo", ent)); try (Statement stmt = conn.createStatement()) { stmt.executeUpdate(xml) }

const MAX_AMOUNT = 42, MIN_BATCHES = 2 database .from(table) .where( (amount) => amount < MAX_AMOUNT, table.field3 ) .select(table.field1, table.field3) .group_by(table.field1) .having( (id) => count(id) >MIN_BATCHES table.field0 )