SQL at 50: A Lesson in How to Stay Relevant Around Data
Dataversity, Wednesday, May 1st, 2024
Structured query language (SQL) is now 50 years old. The original paper for SQL (then called SEQUEL) was published in May 1974 by Raymond Boyce and Donald Chamberlin, and provided a guide for data manipulation based on a set of simple commands.
Today, we take SQL for granted around data - it is still the third most popular language used by professional programmers, and it can support innovations from geographic data through to JSON and generative AI.
But why is SQL still around? Why does this language, with its idiosyncrasies, quirks, and challenging syntax, still play such a central role in how we work around data today?