RBAR

Coined by database administrator Jeff Moden.[1][2]

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹiː.bɑɹ/
• Homophone: rebar

RBAR

1. (database administration, derogatory) Initialism of row by agonizing row; used to describe procedural programming in SQL.
   • [2005 January 10, Jeff Moden, “Calculating Work Days”, in SQLServerCentral‎, Simple Talk Publishing, archived from the original on 2007-10-23:

     All of these methods either employ (what I call) "RBAR" programming (pronounced as "ree-bar" and stands for "Row By Agonizing Row") […]]

   • 2007 July 26, Remi Gregoire, “RBAR: ‘Row By Agonizing Row’”, in Redgate‎, retrieved 2021-07-19:

     RBAR is a consequence of coding in a strictly procedural way, rather than in a set-based way. It is different from poor coding; it is the result of adopting a mindset that one always has to tell the computer, step by step […]

   • 2019 December 9, Randy Knight, “Rethinking RBAR”, in SQL Solutions Group‎:

     While RBAR used over twice as much log as the set based operations, the log used per transaction was less than half.

• Barr, Brar