Is T-SQL, Declarative Extensions of SQL Necessary?

[WWGD]

Hi,
Just curious: I was told, without proof, that declarative ( i.e., not purely imperative) versions of SQL are not strictly necessary, i.e., that anything that can be done within declarative extensions can also be done within the imperative "restriction" . So, e.g., anything in SQL Server that is done n T-SQL can also be done within the "Standard" version of MS SQL Server SQL. I could not find anything definitive nor clear in this respect.

 

[jedishrfu]

When I work with SQL I don't think in this manner. I mean if I'm using T-SQL (which I don't) and I needed to do something more specialized I would look for whatever feature they have that allows me to do it especially if I know that SQL has no such feature.

In some restricted implementations of SQL by other vendors, they may not allow the SQL UNION statement (T-SQL supports this) and so I would need to come up with some intermediate table manipulations to to get what I want.

Here's a comparison of Oracle SQL to T-SQL:

https://www.seguetech.com/microsoft-sql-server-vs-oracle-same-different/