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Unified NoSQL Query Language Launched

Posted by timothy on from the ontogeny-recapitulates-phylogeny dept.

splitenz writes "Hoping to unify the growing but disparate market of NoSQL databases, the creators behind CouchDB and SQLite have introduced a new query language for the format, called UnQL (Unstructured Data Query Language — .PS). It has Microsoft's backing."

4 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong link in the summery? by ggy · · Score: 4, Informative
    Hrm, if you read TFA you'll notice the part

    This version of UnQL has no relation to an identically named unstructured data query language proposed by a University of Pennsylvania researcher over a decade ago, Phillips said.

    which funnily enough is linked in the summery.
    Maybe you should fix this to point to the actual link in TFA http://wwww.unqlspec.org/ ?

  2. Re:Can somebody explain NoSQLers to me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Try to read CJ Date work on relational theory and relational databases. Every single thing you say is wrong, I'm sorry to say that. Relational databases are not about "fixed column data models". It's not an ACID Excel. It's not about tables. It's about sets and how sets relates to it's members and to other sets. This includes hierarchical models, which are easily expressed in a RDBMS.

    Those who doesn't understand relational databases are bound to reinvent it, poorly.

  3. What a major f* fail in citations by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 3, Informative
    What a fail. Notice the second link in the quote below:

    splitenz writes:

    "Hoping to unify the growing but disparate market of NoSQL databases, the creators behind CouchDB and SQLite have introduced a new query language for the format, called UnQL (Unstructured Data Query Language — .PS). It has Microsoft's backing."

    Then, FTA (right at the bottom of it):

    This version of UnQL has no relation to an identically named unstructured data query language proposed by a University of Pennsylvania researcher over a decade ago, Phillips said.

    I know it's slashdot, but c'mon. Just looking at the linked postscript file shows you a major WTF discrepancy. First the paper is from 2000, and then that paper's query language is based on algebras that do not resemble Codd's relational algebra at all. And that runs counter to this, also FTFA:

    Like SQL, UnQL was built on the foundation of relational algebra, Phillips said.

    The news are great. The coverage blows. It would pay to read the stuff that is being submitted as a story... just sayin...

  4. Re:Can somebody explain NoSQLers to me? by Joey+Vegetables · · Score: 5, Informative

    Developer and former DBA here. Yes, the relational model is more than capable of expressing hierarchical data. However, the SQL language, at least the subset common to most popular RDBMSs, doesn't grok hiearchical data very well. And that leads to a point Codd, Date and others make pretty much every day of their lives: Relational =! SQL. The relational model has elegance and power that can't be expressed in SQL, at least not easily. But many of those confronted with the shortcomings of SQL falsely assume these to be shortcomings of the relational model as well, which in most cases they are not.

    --

    Nonaggression works!