A Critique of Modern SQL And A Proposal Towards A Simple and Expressive Query Language
Summary: Empirical critique of modern SQL from real-query analysis exposing inconsistent syntax, poor learnability, and limited extensibility. Proposes SaneQL: a concise, consistent language preserving multiset semantics and supporting user-defined operators that integrate with built-ins. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)
Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time
Authors
- 1. Thomas Neumann (Technical University of Munich)
- 2. Viktor Leis (Technical University of Munich)
BibTeX Citation
@inproceedings{neumann_cidr24,
address = {Amsterdam, Netherlands},
series = {{CIDR} '24},
title = {{A Critique of Modern SQL And A Proposal Towards A Simple and Expressive Query Language}},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Conference} on {Innovative} {Data} {Systems} {Research}},
author = {Neumann, Thomas and Leis, Viktor},
year = {2024}
}Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 6 of 6 citing papers.
| Rank | Citing Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,367 | SQL Has Problems. We Can Fix Them: Pipe Syntax In SQL | 2024 | VLDB | 6.7395125e-05 |
| 5,535 | Runtime-Extensible Parsers | 2025 | CIDR | 6.1828827e-05 |
| 5,547 | Beyond Relations: A Case for Elevating to the Entity-Relationship Abstraction | 2025 | CIDR | 6.1790655e-05 |
| 10,133 | Database Research needs an Abstract Relational Query Language | 2026 | CIDR | 5.093636e-05 |
| 10,143 | Raqlet: Cross-Paradigm Compilation for Recursive Queries | 2026 | CIDR | 5.093636e-05 |
| 10,220 | Dialect-Agnostic SQL Parsing via LLM-Based Segmentation | 2026 | SIGMOD | 5.093636e-05 |
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)
Showing 4 of 4 cited papers.
Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.
| Rank | Cited Paper | Year | Venue | Pagerank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,431 | Towards Scalable Dataframe Systems | 2020 | VLDB | 0.00010807221 |
| 3,673 | Efficient Processing of Window Functions in Analytical SQL Queries | 2015 | VLDB | 7.2113383e-05 |
| 4,079 | Flexible Rule-Based Decomposition and Metadata Independence in Modin: A Parallel Dataframe System | 2022 | VLDB | 6.9188052e-05 |
| 6,604 | Machine Learning, Linear Algebra, and More: Is SQL All You Need? | 2022 | CIDR | 5.8240599e-05 |
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