Can read more about it in this book. I'm not sure where to find the definitive account.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/american-exception-empire-and-...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51074723-one-nation-unde...

  with persons as (select * from Person)  
  select Name from persons  
  where Birthdate < '2000-01-01

  create table x as (select * from person);
  select name from x where ...;

or even a version with lazy evaluation:

  create view x as (select * from person);
  select name from x where ...;

SQL just does not have this, it instead has 15 different second class ways to handle tables and queries that try to make up for the fact that they are not first-class values. These include CTEs, table valued functions, views, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-class_citizen

If you want to see what queries as first-class values looks like, LINQ in .NET is pretty close. I can actually write a series of queries that build on and compose with each other, like this:

    IQueryable<Person> RunQuery(int userSelection)
    {
        var first = from x in People
                    select x;
        var second = userSelection == 1
            ? from x in first where x.Birthday > '2000-01-01' select x
            : from x in first where x.Name.Contains("Jane") select x;
        return DumbJoin(first, second);
    }

    IQueryable<Person> DumbJoin(IQueryable<Person> first, IQueryable<second>)
    {
        return from x in second
               join y in first on y.Role equals x.Role into g
               select g;
    }

I doubt you could implement a query planner that would cope with that degree of flexibility. Which means you’d be forced to deal with the mechanics of the query, pushing you away from declarative SQL and into procedural and functional programming. At which point you might as well ditch SQL anyway.

Besides, I don't think it would be as bad as you say. You can approach it as a simple template expansion into flat SQL queries except where a data dependency occurs, at which point template expansion proceeds in stages, one for each dependency.

LINQ on .NET provides most of the composability I'm talking about, although it has a few limitations as well. Still worlds better than raw SQL.

  CREATE TABLE data_a AS (SELECT 'a' AS test_case, 1 AS value);
  CREATE TABLE data_b AS (SELECT 'b' AS test_case, 2 AS value);
  CREATE VIEW data AS (SELECT * FROM data_a UNION ALL SELECT * FROM data_b);

  CREATE VIEW complicated_query AS (SELECT test_case, value+1 FROM data);

  SELECT * FROM complicated_query WHERE test_case = 'a';
  SELECT * FROM complicated_query WHERE test_case = 'b';

  CREATE TABLE data_a AS (SELECT 'a' AS test_case, 1 AS value);
  CREATE TABLE data_b AS (SELECT 'b' AS test_case, 2 AS value);
  CREATE TABLE data_prod AS (SELECT NULL AS test_case, prod_table.value FROM prod_table);

  CREATE VIEW data AS (SELECT * FROM data_a UNION ALL SELECT * FROM data_b UNION ALL SELECT * FROM data_prod);

  CREATE VIEW complicated_query AS (SELECT test_case, value+1 FROM data);

  -- when testing
  SELECT * FROM complicated_query WHERE test_case = 'a';
  SELECT * FROM complicated_query WHERE test_case = 'b';

  -- when in 'production'
  SELECT * FROM complicated_query WHERE test_case IS NULL;

This perfectly illustrates my point. You had to manually defunctionalize your data model and queries to support what I'm saying should be inherently part of SQL.

1) Only if you define Pascal as only Wirth's very first version. That changed almost immediately.

2) Only if you refuse to equate “pointer to function” with “function”. Which in C, where “everything is a pointer” (a bit like in Unix Linux “everything is a file”), seems rather silly.

I, as userA, with site www.squarespace.com/userA, could subscribe to all or part of userB's site www.wix.com/userB or www.userB.com/photos but not www.userB.com/crazyBlog. Then, on your own site/app, you choose the things you are subscribed to that you want to "re-publish" or add comments to or share. userB could also choose to not let you follow their space.

This decentralizes away from any particular company and should limit the unintentional crazy that is broadcast across current platforms.

Why can't social media follow a similar methodology? There is no requirement that FB/Twitter/Insta/etc feeds be a single "unit". The primary experience would be a main feed (uncontroversial), but additional feeds/labels would be available to view platform-labeled content. A "Spam Feed" and a "Controversial Feed" and a "This Might Be Misinformation Feed".

Rather than censoring content, it segregates it. Users are free to seek/view that content, but must implicitly acknowledge the platform's opinion by clicking into that content. Just like you know you are looking at "something else" when you go to your email Spam folder, you would be aware that you are venturing off the beaten path when going to the "Potential State-Sponsored Propaganda Feed". There must be some implicit trust in a singular feed which is why current removal/censorship schemas cause such "passionate" responses.

There are some SQL varieties that actually allow a hanging comma! Also, the provided examples seem comma-dependent, no?

As someone who writes a ton of analytical SQL, i think this would get super messy for long, complex queries with casting, case statements, windows functions, etc.

Most people just need to learn to write better SQL!

My job mainly consisted of statistics and data applied specifically to insurance, which I found very boring. I was in life insurance, which is quite simple (people only die once!). Health insurance would have been more interesting, but I am in favor of single payor, so this would have been difficult for me. Property & Casualty (vehicles, property, events, umbrella, custom, etc) would have been the most interesting.

Once I decided to leave, I got an MBA (core courses were trivial due to actuarial knowledge of stats, finance, econ, accounting, etc), and ended up in Analytics/DataScience at tech companies, where my skills transferred quite well.

I would hire anyone who has passed even a single SOA/CAS exam in a Data Science role in a heartbeat - likely above most other candidates. While I don't directly monitor the "State of the Actuaries", I would have expected the industry to better poise itself as the penultimate "Data Science" candidate-incubator and stretch beyond insurance. I haven't seen an actuarial program that didn't cover computing science as part of degree requirements - and in my case, I also met all degree requirements for BSc Statistics. I did see however the SOA added a predictive analytics exam, exercised in R language.... so that's a start.

/resists urge to bash the term "Data Science" as a Science... because it's really just a combination of {actuarial,stats,cs} which are real science disciplines.