Oracle has these features, SQL Server has these features, etc. But that's not really where the real importance lies. Sure, functionality is a part of it because your database should be able to do ...

OK, while I'm really bad about approving comments (mostly because the platform makes it so painful), I do want to answer a few of them here real quick. First and foremost because this is bothering me.

So SQL will be the COBOL in the year 2020. We're stuck with it, everybody hates it because it's a lousy language and we have IBM to thank for foisting that one on us. Quel was universally better.

The first is support for regular expressions, which has long been a feature gap between Oracle and SQL Server. If you aren't familiar with the dark arts of RegEx, ...

So SQL will be the COBOL in the year 2020. We're stuck with it, everybody hates it because it's a lousy language and we have IBM to thank for foisting that one on us. Quel was universally better.