I thought Microsoft did a good job of adding a procedural-like feel to SQL with SCOPE's virtual views; see <a href="http://icme2007.org/~jrzhou/pub/Scope.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://icme2007.org/~jrzhou/pub/Scope.pdf</a> for more.<p>PigLatin certainly is a nice approach to the problem as well, of course.