Google propõe novo operador SQL, para facilitar composição de queries

[Rui Carlos]

A Google apresentou recentemente uma extensão ao SQL, que já implementaram internamente: um operador pipe (|>) para compor queries.

No último ano, tenho usado cada vez mais PySpark para tarefas de análise de dados, precisamente pela forma como é fácil construir as queries compondo pequenos passos, quando comparado com SQL.  (Por outro lado, o PySpark, sendo uma API, é um pouco mais verboso que o SQL.)

O operador |> parece-me grande potencial para colmatar esta lacuna do SQL, e tornar o SQL novamente a minha linguagem de eleição para processamento de dados.

 

https://research.google/pubs/sql-has-problems-we-can-fix-them-pipe-syntax-in-sql/

Citação

SQL has been extremely successful as the de facto standard language for working with data. Virtually all mainstream database-like systems use SQL as their primary query language. But SQL is an old language with significant design problems, making it difficult to learn, difficult to use, and difficult to extend. Many have observed these challenges with SQL, and proposed solutions involving new languages. New language adoption is a significant obstacle for users, and none of the potential replacements have been successful enough to displace SQL.

In GoogleSQL, we’ve taken a different approach - solving SQL’s problems by extending SQL. Inspired by a pattern that works well in other modern data languages, we added piped data flow syntax to SQL. The results are transformative - SQL becomes a flexible language that’s easier to learn, use and extend, while still leveraging the existing SQL ecosystem and existing userbase. Improving SQL from within allows incrementally adopting new features, without migrations and without learning a new language, making this a more productive approach to improve on standard SQL.