Doesn't it? The "ignorant majority", as you call them, simply do not give a flying flip if 13 people are still playing Halo 2. They don't care that you can't play Halo 2 on XBL. Frankly, I don't care either. Eventually every game you buy and love multiplayer will have no one left to play with. It sucks a little bit that Microsoft has the power to move that date up, but it doesn't suck enough for me to not buy XBL games. Don't expect the "ignorant majority" to fight a battle for you when they simply do not care.

Well that explains everything. The < operator, when typed straight from the keyboard, gets filtered out. The parent post, like me, didn't properly check his "preview". Try "i <= 10" ftw. Oh btw, Anonymous Coward = me, forgot to log in.

The problem, I think, runs a little deeper than all that though.

SQL is unfortunately tied fairly tightly to an RDBMS implementation. All those "join" statements, various ways of expressing "constraints" such as "foreign keys" - all are considered "integral" parts of SQL.

No, you don't have to provide them. A Post-Relational like Amazon SimpleDB could, theoretically, use SQL for querying and just trim back the feature-set.

But perhaps it'd be wiser to look at a query language more specific to the Post-Relational model?

Perhaps SQL stopped being "SQL" and started being "Structured Relational Query Language". *shrugs*

What is proper design?

Is it spending 3 weeks drawing diagrams that, in 3 more weeks, won't represent the true state of the system at all?

You draw your diagram. I'll spend 1 night doing a rough-shot prototype. I'll "hack" it.

Then I'll use that prototype when I create a well-architected system. Then, since I share my stuff lots, other "hackers" will help improve that design.

Be careful when you discard one set of "propaganda", and listen blindly to another. Maybe "hackers" aren't so "evil" after all. After all, I don't remember signing up for any cult.

Oh really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic Hacker Ethic is knowledge sharing, decentralization, respect based on merit. Compare that to the "professional" environment where certain races or genders can't advance past the "glass ceiling". Yup, those hackers sure suck. Generalizing is fun.