You don't have to treat the syntax design of a query language like a puzzle box, and certainly the designers of SQL didn't. SQL is more like a gray metal filing-cabinet full of manilla folders full of officious forms. I spent a decade formulating music questions in SQL, and I got a lot of exciting answers, but the process never got any less drab or any more inspiring. It never made me much want to tell other people that they should want to do this, too. It was always work.
I don't think this is just me. SQL may be more or less tolerable to different writers, but I feel fairly certain that nobody finds it charming. Whether anybody other than me will find DACTAL charming, I won't presume to predict, but every earnest work begins with an audience of one. DACTAL has an internal aesthetic logic, and using it pleases me and makes me want to use it more. And makes me care about it. I never cared about SQL. I never wanted to improve it. It never seemed like it cared about itself enough to want to improve.
In DACTAL, I feel every tiny grating misalignment of components as an opportunity for attention, adjustment, resolution. I pause in mid-question, and grab my tweezers. Changing reverse index-number filtering from :@-<=8 to :@@<=8 eliminates the only syntactic use of - inside filters; this allows filter negation to be switched from ! to - to match all the other subtractive and reversal cases; this frees up ! to be the repeat operator, eliminating the weird non-synergy between ? (start) and ?? (repeat). ?messages._,replies?? seems to express more doubt about replies than enthusiasm. Recursion is exclamatory. messages._,replies!
The gears snap into their new places with more lucid clicks. I want to feel like humming while I work, not grumbling. Like I'm discovering secrets, not filing paperwork.
I don't think this is just me. SQL may be more or less tolerable to different writers, but I feel fairly certain that nobody finds it charming. Whether anybody other than me will find DACTAL charming, I won't presume to predict, but every earnest work begins with an audience of one. DACTAL has an internal aesthetic logic, and using it pleases me and makes me want to use it more. And makes me care about it. I never cared about SQL. I never wanted to improve it. It never seemed like it cared about itself enough to want to improve.
In DACTAL, I feel every tiny grating misalignment of components as an opportunity for attention, adjustment, resolution. I pause in mid-question, and grab my tweezers. Changing reverse index-number filtering from :@-<=8 to :@@<=8 eliminates the only syntactic use of - inside filters; this allows filter negation to be switched from ! to - to match all the other subtractive and reversal cases; this frees up ! to be the repeat operator, eliminating the weird non-synergy between ? (start) and ?? (repeat). ?messages._,replies?? seems to express more doubt about replies than enthusiasm. Recursion is exclamatory. messages._,replies!
The gears snap into their new places with more lucid clicks. I want to feel like humming while I work, not grumbling. Like I'm discovering secrets, not filing paperwork.