For the last year, I've been working on a query language that aims to replace SQL and data frame libraries. It's continuation of my work on PRQL and EdgeQL.
Now I need feedback on usability, ergonomics and overall design. Read trough the examples, check out the CLI & tell me what could be better.
I use vyos instead of OpenWRT, but I'd presume OpenWRT can mirror a port? It'd be better to do it on your switch of course. But you could mirror your traffic going across the LAN-WAN barrier and direct it to a security onion install, it's an opensource IDS. It has pretty heavy demands, but traffic analysis is not an easy, computationally cheap task.
It's definitely not malicious intent. It's an inlined version of our new search engine that we'll release in early 2026, but already wanted to ship with Zensical. However, you're right that this might raise some eyebrows – we'll fix it with the next release.
These "anti-patterns" are just workarounds for bad language design of SQL (or lack of design actually). I'm working on a language that can run on SQL databases, so I hope it will do better with every one of these points.
If anyone wants to check out a half-done lang with lacking documentation, I'd be happy to read your feedback: https://lutra-lang.org
"SQL database" doesn't describe anything. Variations of SQL have implementations on relational and non-relational databases. SQL and relational often get used interchangeably but given your goal you might want to use the terms more precisely.
Experts including Codd recognized the problems with SQL since that language got traction. Some alternatives got proposed, perhaps most notably Tutorial D by Chris Date and Hugh Darwen. No SQL replacement goes anywhere because of the vast quantity of SQL code and supporting tools dating back decades. Chris Date wrote the textbook on databases, and at least one book going through the problems with SQL and various implementations of the relational model.
SQL perfectly illustrates what Strostrup meant by "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses." In some sense I would welcome a better query language. On the other hand I attribute decades of job security and steady income to knowing SQL and dealing with its problems.
My wife uses this a lot. ArcMap used to be de-facto software in her field, but QGis has overtaken that completely. It might not be as polished as ArcMap, it's missing a few guardrails that would prevent you messing up, but it has more features, extensions, better platform support and is free as in beer.
Now I need feedback on usability, ergonomics and overall design. Read trough the examples, check out the CLI & tell me what could be better.
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