If you're modeling relational data, it doesn't seem like you can get around using a DB that uses SQL, which to me is the worst: most programmers aren't DB experts and the SQL they output is quite often terrible.
Not to dunk on the lemmy devs, they do a good job, but they themselves know that their SQL is bad. Luckily there are community members who stepped up and are doing a great job at fixing the numerous performance issues and tuning the DB settings, but not everybody has that kind of support, nor time.
Also, the translation step from binary (program) -> text (SQL) -> binary (server), just feels quite wrong. For HTML and CSS, it's fine, but for SQL, where injection is still in the top 10 security risks, is there something better?
Yes, there are ORMs, but some languages don't have them (rust has diesel for example, which still requires you to write SQL) and it would be great to "just" have a DB with a binary protocol that makes it unnecessary to write an ORM.
Does such a thing exist? Is there something better than SQL out there?
I've worked in various support roles for sysadmins and the fact that things work at all is amazing to me. I've encountered so many people whose skills make me wonder how they got their job working at huge important corporations and organizations with extremely sensitive data.
For example, how can you consider yourself a senior DBA if you don't know how to read a log file to figure out an error? Most of my workday is filled with supporting basic computer literacy, and I'm working with the people who are supposed to know this shit.
I'm horrfied every day at work that copy/paste still is an issue. All my coworkers and customers are still struggling with copying some data, switching to another program, pasting it, switching back, copying some other data, and so on, especially when needing two or three data frequently.
In Windows, a (bad) solution is using win+tab, which literally no one knows about, much less uses.
In Linux (and should be in Windows too), it is trivial to implement buffers (say 0-9) to store and retrieve clipboard data for subseconds access.