The Intended Role of Andl

The intended role of Andl is to be the implementation language for the data model of an application. That needs some explanation.

Andl does what SQL does, but it is not SQL. It is possible to code the business model of an application in SQL dialects such as PL/PSM (SQL Standard), PL/SQL (Oracle) or Transact-SQL (Microsoft) but SQL has many problems (see here) and few people make this choice. Andl aims to provide a language free of these problems.

Andl has been designed to be used as follows. First, an application developer takes a set of business requirements that comprise a data model, a set of operations on that model, and a set of requirements for users to interact with the model. The data model is implemented in the form of tables in a relational database management system, and the user interface and related business requirements is implemented using some chosen front end technology: web, desktop or mobile as needed. Andl is used to implement the operations on the data model, and the means by which the user interface queries and updates the data in the model.

The effect is that the ‘object relational mismatch’ disappears, and there is no longer any need for an ‘object relational mapper’. No objects are needed between the data model and the user interface, just data as individual items, rows or tables.

There is still a role for a general purpose programming language like C# or Java, acting as glue to join various parts together and also in implementing various parts of the type system that Andl depends on. There is still a role for a front end technology based on languages such as HTML and JavaScript since Andl does not offer a user interface.

But for the heart of the business application, for operations on the data and for implementing the rules, there is Andl.

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