The wonder of a Database and SQL.

They say the wonders of the world are African Pyramids and Indian Rivers... But no Miracle was equal to when I discovered SQL...

Suddenly I didnt have to mess with type-defs and linked lists anymore...

Suddenly I didnt have to worry about working-memory space anymore...

SQL allowed me to 

SELECT exactly what I needed 

FROM tables 

WHERE I could JOIN, link or combine the data, 

AND I could filter on conditions, and also immediately

ORDER it BY whatever I fancied.

I could even pre-format it in the select-list. My poor FORTRAN program at the time became a PRO*FORTRAN program and it lost some 50% of its 10.000 lines...(and pre/compiled/linked a lot faster).

We used to open flat-file data-sets with WMO (weather) data....

Suddenly that database did more than half the work for me.

That was a Good Time. It felt a bit as "on credit of the RDBMS", but it was Heaven and it lasted forever. 30 years later, I still use SQL. 

SQL!