I thought the point of the article is it just interesting that sql seems well suited for lists, and has primitives for ordering but that within sql alone a performant ordered list is more complicated than one would expect before thinking.
Why the constraint on sql alone? In many reporting systems you can generate reports based on an sql query, so a query that pulls out the data in order can be useful in a real world use case.
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I largely agree with everything you said.
I thought the point of the article is it just interesting that sql seems well suited for lists, and has primitives for ordering but that within sql alone a performant ordered list is more complicated than one would expect before thinking.
Why the constraint on sql alone? In many reporting systems you can generate reports based on an sql query, so a query that pulls out the data in order can be useful in a real world use case.