Re: How does XML limit "the range of implementationdecisions t

From: John Cowan <johnwcowan@gmail.com>
To: Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2022 16:55:05 -0400

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On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 5:09 PM Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com> wrote:

The SQL is declarative, and non-procedural

This is a widespread myth. SQL is an imperative language whose domain is (mostly) relations rather than lower-level objects. It is only "declarative" in the sense that C is declarative: you tell the compiler what you want done, and it chooses an execution plan for doing it, namely a machine language program.

As for "procedural", it seems nowadays to be a synonym for "imperative".

Isn't all
declarative, 'non-procedural' code usually actually turned into
something procedural behind the scenes?

Yes, if it is compiled; no if it is interpreted. This distinction is meaningful but relative: languages are in all cases compiled into something lower-level which is then interpreted, whether by hardware or software. We call an implementation an interpreter if it does only a small amount of compiling; we call it a compiler if the interpreter is hardware or very low level.

Isn't declarative,
'non-procedural' code actually an illusion, wrapping procedural code
under the hood - smoke and mirrors?

On modern pipelined CPU the so-called "machine language" is also smoke and mirrors. "You don't fool _me_, young man. It's turtles all the way down."

References:
- How does XML limit "the range of implementation decisions that mustbe automatically made"?
  - From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
- Re: How does XML limit "the range of implementationdecisions that must be automatically made"?
  - From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
- Re: How does XML limit "the range of implementationdecisions that must be automatically made"?
  - From: Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>

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