[CodesInChaos]

For me SQL feels like PHP. Sure it's usable, but it doesn't spark joy.

Syntactically PRQL is much simpler, cleaner and more flexible. You simply chain pipeline stages instead of having a single monolithic query statement.

Data model wise EdgeQL is close to what I want (links instead of joins, optionality instead of null, nesting support), but it's syntax is almost as bad as SQL.

[unshavedyak]

Oh man, PRQL looks so good.

I just wish they had mutation in there too. I don't like the idea of swapping between PRQL and SQL, let alone some complex update statements where i'd rather write the query in PRQL. .. Yea you could argue they shouldn't be that complex for updates though heh.

[snthpy]

Yeah, we deliberately left out DML to focus on DQL exclusively. I also find that appealing from a philosophical angle since it allows PRQL to remain completely functional.

I haven't thought about DML too much but what I could envision is an approach like the Elm or React architecture where you specify a new state for a table as a PRQL query and then the compiler computes the diff and issues an efficient update.

For example

    DELETE FROM table_name WHERE id = 1;

would be something like

    table_name = from table_name | filter id != 1

SQL:

    INSERT INTO table_name (id, name) VALUES (1, 'Jane');

PRQL:

   table_name = from table_name | append [{id=1, name='Jane'}]

Update is the trickiest to not have clunky syntax. For example what should the following look like?

SQL:

    UPDATE table_name SET name = 'John' WHERE id = 1;

I can think of `filter` followed by `append` or maybe a case statement but neither seems great.

Any ideas?