Ever heard of ISBL?

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t. Wikipedia devotes only a single sentence to it, and you’re unlikely to find it mentioned in any database textbook. It’s a relational database language that was developed during the 1970s at IBM’s UK Scientific Centre, around about the time that SQL was being spawned in IBMs US labs.

ISBL never took off, whilst SQL became ubiquitous. This is a shame, because ISBL was an elegant system that used only six query operators, and was firmly based on Codd’s relational model; conversely, SQL was a mixed up mess of inconsistent keywords and terrible design decisions.

In today’s SQL dominated world, modern programmers may be sceptical of my opinions. Sure, SQL may have it’s quirks, but it’s not that bad a language - is it? Rather than lecture you, I’ll provide an example…