Thanks for breaking the silence, both of you.

It is difficult to compare SQL with a conventional language. It is like comparing C# to Postscript. Writing SQL gives me more pleasure than any other language, because one can hammer together an application very quickly. It may not look pretty, but it will do a job of work. I've served by time crafting applications in C, Pascal, C++ and so on, but the lingering after-effect is an impatience to get things up and running quickly.

I think that today is an exciting time for anyone programming with relational databases because we are continually having to rethink what is possible. I agree that SQL has its flaws. It doesn't even allow you to use the whole relational model. However it will do me fine for the time being.

I think SQL Server's lack of IDE is a historical problem. It was bought-in by Microsoft to fill a gap in the product line, and, as Sybase, was designed to be portable across different operating systems. Everybody expected Microsoft to develop tools as rich as Sybase's Powerbuilder. It never seemed to happen, for some reason. There were several strategies that never really worked, and we never got anything with the richness of Powerbuilder or Business Objects. SQL Server has always remained culturally different from the rest of the Microsoft stable, but that is more the fault of Microsoft than the SQL Language, I think.