April 2, 2010

Those who forget history are doomed to believe it is recurring

The top PostgreSQL-related April Fool’s joke this year, which seems to have successfully pranked at least a few people, was that Postgres is dropping SQL in favor of an alternative language QUEL.

Folks, QUEL was the original language for Postgres. And Ingres. And, more or less, Teradata.*  I’d guess Britton-Lee too, but I don’t recall for sure.

*Once upon a distant time, when I was a cocky young stock analyst, I explained to Phil Neches, chief scientist of Teradata, just why it was a really good business idea to drop T-QUEL for SQL. I doubt he was convinced quite on that day, more’s the pity.

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