Many programming languages are designed to be robust and can

Many programming languages are designed to be robust and can be used for general programming. Can SQL be defined as a robust, general-purpose programming language? Please provide specific examples as to whether (or not) SQL meets this criterion.

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Solution

SQL - Structure Query Language:

                                                The very first thing I\'d like to insist on this topic is SQL is a Query language not an standard programming language. I\'ve explain the way in which SQL differs from other programming language below.

No Hierarchial flow to achieve task:

                          In a programming language to complete a task, you\'ve design the code that will do one operation after the other until it complete the task. But in case SQL, to solve a task, instead of telling the system how to get the task done, you simply tell it what you want. SQL will decides the best way to get the task completed.

Example:

In case, if you have an EMPLOYEE table and you want to retrieve from it the rows corresponding to all “senior” or chennai city people. You want to define a senior person as anyone over age 50 . You could do so with the following query:

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE AGE>50 OR CITY = CHENNAI;

This statement will retrieve the desired rows with SQL, you are not responsible for specifying how to retrieve the information. The database engine examines the database and decides for itself how to fulfill your request. You only need to specify what data you want to retrieve.

To solve problems in a general programming language (such as Basic, C, COBOL, FORTRAN, and so on), you write lines of code that perform one operation after another until the program completes its tasks. The program may execute its lines of code in a linear sequence or loop to repeat some steps or branch to skip others. In any case, when writing a program in a procedural language, the programmer specifies what is to be done and how to do it.

SQL is not Robust:

                            Below mentioned points are the property of Robus Programming language.

              1. The system will not break down easily and it will not wholly affected by a single application failure

              2. The system should be Reliable and portable.

              3. The system should havestrong type checking so that you don’t attempt to do the wrong operation

                   on an object.

              4. It should not crash due to unwanted behaviour.

However in SQL the above included robustness points will not be applicable.

           1. In SQL if an application associated with a system fails, then the entire process will be blocked

               Example : Deadlock.

           2. Robustive language like Java are platform independant, but SQL needs it very own environment to Run.

           3. Type checking and default error handling mechanism are not strong in SQL.

           Even though SQL is powerful Language, SQL is not an general purpose or Robustive programming language.