Observations on data manipulation languages and their embedding in general purpose programming languages
Michael R Stonebraker, Lawrence A. Rowe · Very Large Data Bases · 1977
Many data base query languages, both stand-alone and coupled to a general purpose programming language, have been proposed. A number of issues that various designs have addressed in different ways are treated in this paper. These issues include the specification of performance options, side effects, implicitness, the handling of types and the time of binding. In all cases, the emphasis is on a comparative analysis, rather than on an exhaustive survey of proposals. Several general observations on language design for data base access are also made.