[Categoricaldata_announce] announcing FQL++

[Ryan Wisnesky]

Hello everyone,

David Spivak and I are pleased to announce an initial release of FQL++, the next iteration of FQL, and an associated FQL++ IDE.  FQL++ differs from FQL in several key ways:
 
 - FQL++ abandons SQL-compatibility in favor of additional expressiveness.  For example, in FQL a functor F : C -> D must have D=Set or D=a category.  FQL++ allows D=Cat and D=Set^E, for finite E.  FQL++ also admits endofunctors on Set, and allows users to program sets and functions using the internal logic of Set.

 - FQL++ is oriented around finite categories, rather than finitely presented, potentially infinite categories.

 - FQL was designed as a stand-alone SQL compiler, and hence was difficult to embed in 3rd party applications.  FQL++ is designed as a library and can be embedded in 3rd party applications much more easily.

 - FQL++ is designed as a test-bed for a more general approach to attributes, to be explored this fall.  At present, schemas in FQL++ have no attributes, but concrete data can be stored directly in instances.  (i.e., unlike FQL, FQL++ does not make use of globally unique IDs, easing programmability).

FQL++ can be downloaded from categoricaldata.net/fql.  FQL++ is much less mature than FQL, and questions, experience reports, and bug reports are welcome.

Ryan Wisnesky