First, Dataphor isn't a database engine. It's a C# abstraction layer that runs on top of other databases. Second, if you look at the discussion forums for the product, it has a number of major issues. The only places it receives unending praise are its own marketing pages on its own site.

Can't say I'm familiar with Muldis. I searched for it, and it looks like it has verbosity issues (a simple left outer join takes 14 lines of code, as written by it's original developer), but I'm not familiar enough with it to judge the viability of it one way or the other.

Personally, I don't think there is a viable alternative to SQL at this time. I think one or more will evolve, and SQL will go the way of COBOL, PASCAL and FORTRAN. But keep in mind that COBOL still has a simply titanic install-base.

My assertion is not that SQL is perfect. Far from it. For one thing, OOP devs often seem to have horrific problems with comprehending the paradigm at all. That barrier is a real barrier, is not an indictment of OOP devs, and needs to be solved. But it needs to be solved in such a way that it doesn't create more problems than it solves.

Quite likely, as with most human disciplines, specialization will evolve enough that OOP devs won't need to work with SQL, not because SQL will go away, but because it will be hidden behind the scenes enough to effectively disappear.

Take a look at metalworking for an example of this sort of evolution. It used to be, way back when, that the same person mined, refined, and worked the metal into final products. Very inefficient. Now, the mining, refining, working, etc., are all done by specialized industries that very rarely overlap. I seriously doubt that any of the welders who work for Toyota would be able to identify a potential iron mine, much less work out how to best extract the ore from the ground, nor do they need to know that. As well, the tools for it have evolved into a tremendous diversity of highly specialized machines.

Every human industry I can think of works that way. Starts out with a lot of ineffiency and everyone has to know everything in order to get anything done at all, using tools that are barely adequate to the job, then evolves towards more and more specialization and more and more efficiency, with better and better tools that automate more and more of the process.

I think some people are still looking for a magical transformation, not an evolution. I expect an evolution. And I expect that it will be incremental, and will end up somewhere none of us could have anticipated.