[zbentley]

> The entire archive of the pgsql users' mailing list disagrees. Every wants to know why their plan is suboptimal, or why it changed.

And rather a lot of the archives of $scripting_language_of_your_choice are people confused about duck-typing/type system failures. That doesn't mean scripting languages should be replaced with statically typed ones; just that there are pain points in every system, and right (or wrong) tools for every job.

Don't believe me? Check how much of the FAQ traffic from first-time Rustaceans (or Swift/Java/etc. newcomers) has to do with how to satisfy their language's type system.

You pick your poison. SQL gives you a clearly defined set of tradeoffs up front. If that's not for you, no worries, move along.

[zzzcpan]

The biggest tradeoff SQL gives you is exactly the one GP points out: it's a leaky abstraction where understanding performance is tied to implementation so much, that you pretty much lose all the benefits of SQL, except familiarity with the technology.