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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-11T20:48:50+00:00

In just about any formally structured set of information, you start reading either from

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In just about any formally structured set of information, you start reading either from the start towards the end, or occasionally from the end towards the beginning (street addresses, for example.) But in SQL, especially SELECT queries, in order to properly understand its meaning you have to start in the middle, at the FROM clause. This can make long queries very difficult to read, especially if it contains nested SELECT queries.

Usually in programming, when something doesn’t seem to make any sense, there’s a historical reason behind it. Starting with the SELECT instead of the FROM doesn’t make sense. Does anyone know the reason it’s done that way?

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  1. Editorial Team

    The SQL Wikipedia entry briefly describes some history:

    During the 1970s, a group at IBM San Jose Research Laboratory developed the System R relational database management system, based on the model introduced by Edgar F. Codd in his influential paper, “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks”. Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce of IBM subsequently created the Structured English Query Language (SEQUEL) to manipulate and manage data stored in System R. The acronym SEQUEL was later changed to SQL because “SEQUEL” was a trademark of the UK-based Hawker Siddeley aircraft company.

    The original name explicitly mentioned English, explaining the syntax.

    Digging a little deeper, we find the FLOW-MATIC programming language.

    FLOW-MATIC, originally known as B-0 (Business Language version 0), is possibly the first English-like data processing language. It was invented and specified by Grace Hopper, and development of the commercial variant started at Remington Rand in 1955 for the UNIVAC I. By 1958, the compiler and its documentation were generally available and being used commercially.

    FLOW-MATIC was the inspiration behind the Common Business Oriented Language, one of the oldest programming languages still in active use. Keeping with that spirit, SEQUEL was designed with English-like syntax (1970s is modern, compared with 1950s and 1960s).

    In perspective, “modern” programming systems still access databases using the age old ideas behind 

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