Dave Stokes is a technology evangelist at Percona.
Structured Query Language (SQL) is 50 years old. It is the only programming language from the ’70s that is still around and – unlike COBOL and Fortran, which are confined to limited niche roles – still thriving and expanding. In 2023, the IEEE declared SQL the most popular programming language. But why is SQL still around? It is certainly not easy to learn its syntax. Every database vendor has a quirky implementation that does not port directly to another one. Forgetting aWHERE clause can easily wipe out an entire table in an instant.
But when combined with the relational model of databases, it maps very well to many business practices. The ability to perform transactions is the core of most processes today. SQL was the first programming language to return multiple rows per single request. And by segregating customer information in one table and manufacturing data in another, you can easily compartmentalise data.