rd-parse VS prql

I also wrote a parser (in typescript) for postgres (https://github.com/ivank/potygen), and it turned out quite the educational experience - Learned _a lot_ about the intricacies of SQL, and how to build parsers in general.

Turned out in webdev there are a lot of instances where you actually want a parser - legacy places where they used to save things in plane text for example, and I started seeing the pattern everywhere.

Where I would have reached for some monstrosity of a regex to solve this, now I just whip out a recursive decent parser and call it a day, takes surprisingly small amount of code! (https://github.com/dmaevsky/rd-parse)

I'm very surprised to learn that PRQL does not natively support `like`, but you can add it like this: https://github.com/PRQL/prql/issues/1123#issuecomment-135385...

I feel the same way about SQL too, it's set and difficult to shift. But I also look at PRQL longingly - https://prql-lang.org/

For what it's worth, SQL kind of sucks. It's just the de facto choice because it's extremely widespread and good enough for 80% of the use cases out there and what's missing can be kludged on top of it, either by specific DB vendors, or by various extensions.

It's not too hard to come up with alternatives that improve upon individual aspects of SQL like https://prql-lang.org/ but the barrier of entry is about as high as trying to make a huge social media network, most attempts will remain niche.

Have a look at PRQL [1] for analytical queries. That's exactly what it's designed for. Disclaimer: I'm a contributor.

That said. I like Logica and Datalog. For me the main use case is "recursive" queries as they are simpler to express that way. PRQL has made some progress there with the loop operator but it could still be better. If you have any ideas for improvement, please reach out!

1: https://prql-lang.org/

https://github.com/PRQL/prql

PRQL - the Pipelined Relational Query Language, pronounced "Prequel".

PRQL is a modern language for transforming data — a simple, powerful, pipelined SQL replacement. Like SQL, it's readable, explicit and declarative. Unlike SQL, it forms a logical pipeline of transformations, and supports abstractions such as variables and functions. It can be used with any database that uses SQL, since it compiles to SQL.

Lots of ideas for making PRQL the best language for working with and transforming data in any environment. As a completely community driven project with no corporate association or sponsor, velocity is limited by volunteer availability and contributions so help is welcome. From compiler work in Rust, to front-end improvements on the website, and CLIs, language integrations, alternative backends, etc ... in between.