Time to Move On: Querying Without Nulls and Bags

Researchers argue that database query languages should abandon nulls and bags (duplicate records) in favor of fully normalized relations with set semantics, challenging a fundamental design choice in SQL that has been widely accepted as unavoidable. The authors demonstrate through their work on the Rel programming language that it is possible to design, implement, and deploy a practical query language without these features, while debunking the common justifications for their necessity.