The venerable SQL language has been in existence for a good four decades now, tracing its origins to an era where the punch card was still a viable input method and a computer was something you filled a room with, not put in your pocket. While SQL was a ground-breaking technology at the time and has served the data storage industry well during the intervening years, its heritage from the era of character-orientated terminals, line-feed printers and COMMANDS IN UPPER CASE is proving an increasing impediment in our modern world of cloud-hosted distributed global networks pushing social content to always-connected portable touchscreen devices.
I therefore propose that it is time for the PostgreSQL project to let SQL fade into a well-deserved retirement and embrace the coming NoSQL future. This is a radical step, but it will not be the first time PostgreSQL has switched to a new core language , and I feel the PostgreSQL code base is in an excellent position to handle the transition especially once NoSQL evangelists have reached out to the core developers.
Details on mapping the reduced complexity provided by NoSQL are still being hashed out, but it's likely PostgreNoSQL's NoSQL functionality will coalesce around the HSTORE datatype, currently available as contrib module but which will form a streamlined, distributed core implemented in Node.js and communicating exclusively via the JSON protocol (with 90's-style XML support being available for an interim period). The confusing plethora of index types will be removed except for the hash type, because that sounds cool. This will enable application developers to create their own index methods as required, as they will no longer be restricted by the fuddy-duddy " Daddy knows best " attitude inherent in legacy RDBMSs.
The PostgreNoSQL mascotType checking and constraints will also be removed, further reducing complexity and the overhead they entail, while empowering application developers to manage their data in the way they see best. The venerable command-line orientated client application psql will be deprecated, replaced with a touch-screen compatible app available for both iOS and Android, while a legacy browser version curated in JavaScript with "magic pixels" in the corners of the screen will provide functionality to old-fashioned users who have not yet converted away from the mouse-orientated paradigm.
Of course, many users will be wondering what will happen to the many applications and projects which are written with PostgreSQL's historical SQL capability. It's not unreasonable to expect a transition period of as long as 18 months for existing application code to be ported, during which time the current PostgreSQL version will be maintained under the title " PostgreSQLegacy ". Meanwhile the future branch of the project, known as " PostgreNoSQL ", or " ReNo " for short, will be marketed with the confidence-inspiring slogan:
" What goes into ReNo stays in ReNo "