> It's in essence like having SQL as your underlying data model, and replacing your API with an open read/write/delete access to your SQL server to the entire world, and hoping everyone will run the right queries and all will be all right.
I find it kind of amusing that this was the original purpose of having an "SQL server": letting people (e.g. auditors) submit arbitrary queries, so you won't have to anticipate what exactly they'll want to do with your data. (Write-access was intended to be segregated to particular database users writing to particular tables, though--basically parallel to using WebDAV with HTTP Basic Auth.)
It was, yes, and to this day read-only SQL access to certain tables is not that bad of a practice to allow for report-generating apps within a company.
However the idea of exposing SQL databases publicly as an approach never took hold for many reasons we're today aware of. And the idea of public write access is ridiculous right from its premise.
The anti-API rant of this author shows us that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.
I find it kind of amusing that this was the original purpose of having an "SQL server": letting people (e.g. auditors) submit arbitrary queries, so you won't have to anticipate what exactly they'll want to do with your data. (Write-access was intended to be segregated to particular database users writing to particular tables, though--basically parallel to using WebDAV with HTTP Basic Auth.)