[Ericson2314]

A core language is a minimal AST without surface syntax (and thus no bikeshedding of that) that distills the surface language to its essence.

[Ericson2314]

SQL is basically the list monad, with various quotients / refinements:

- Sometimes the order doesn't matter - Sometimes there are functional dependencies - Sometimes one knows the length of the list in question is 1 (foreign key constraints)