SQL (Structured Query Language) is the standard programming language for managing and querying relational databases. It provides commands for creating, reading, updating, and deleting data, as well as defining schemas, managing permissions, and performing complex analytical queries.
SQL
SQL (Structured Query Language) is the long-standing standard language for defining, querying, and manipulating data in relational databases. Standardized by ISO/IEC 9075 and in use since the 1970s, it gives a common vocabulary — SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, JOIN — for working with tabular data, and it remains the substrate underneath a very large share of the APIs in production.
- Declarative querying - You describe the data you want, not the steps to fetch it, and the database engine works out how.
- Schema and constraints - Tables, keys, and relationships are defined in SQL, giving data a strong, checkable structure.
- A durable ISO standard - Standardized as ISO/IEC 9075 and broadly implemented, so skills and queries carry across engines.
- Analytical power - Joins, aggregates, and window functions make it capable of serious reporting and analysis, not just CRUD.
Most web APIs are ultimately a thin, governed layer over a SQL database, translating HTTP requests into queries and shaping rows back into JSON. I have written about the appeal and the danger of passing SQL statements straight through an API — it is powerful but hands consumers the keys to the store — which is why the better pattern is to expose well-designed OpenAPI contracts and let query languages like SQL, GraphQL, and SPARQL live behind the API boundary rather than in front of it.
Referenced on the API Evangelist blog
Where this standard shows up across sixteen years of my writing at apievangelist.com — how it fits into API design, governance, and the agentic turn.
SQL Statement Pass-Through Using Web APIs
2017-11-30
