Re: Railroad diagrams, a-la sqlite

On 17/07/10 23:36, Thom Brown wrote:
> On 17 July 2010 21:30, Joseph Conway<mail(at)joeconway(dot)com> wrote:
>> On 7/17/10 1:26 PM, Thom Brown wrote:
>>> On 17 July 2010 21:23, Dave Page<dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> wrote:
>>>> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Thom Brown<thombrown(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>>>> While they're quite attractive, I actually see them being more
>>>>> confusing than helpful personally, but I could be wrong. I reckon
>>>>> there might be clearer ways of representing statement options. The
>>>>> real problems with the railroad design come when there are lots of
>>>>> references to other diagrams, and you end up with about 10 just for 1
>>>>> statement.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there a way of testing their usefulness?
>>>>
>>>> Personal experience? I used to find them quite useful when I was
>>>> starting out with Informix.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I guess I'm quite used to the existing statement definitions. It's an
>>> elegant idea, just wondering if it scales sanely. Are the examples of
>>> more complex statements?
>>
>> Oracle SELECT:
>>
>> http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B14117_01/server.101/b10759/statements_10002.htm
>>
>> Joe
>>
>
> Yeah, that kinda chaotic. Looks like a sadistic puzzle from the
> Krypton Factor. :S

Mind you, that syntax is genuinely complex. It would look chaotic using
the text representation we currently use as well.

--
Heikki Linnakangas
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com