> Yes! But I wonder: wouldn't it be better if the developer has to specify how he wants to retrieve the information?

I'd be against making SQL lower level in that sense – part of its purpose is to be back-end agnostic and once you start letting the dev get too details you are locking code to one implementation. Of course this isn't how things generally work anyway beyond the basics, with engine specific hints and such, but let us not intentionally make that more of an issue!

Though if we do go deliberately back-end specific, perhaps a way of describing a query plan more directly and saying “use this” is what you are wanting. Something like plan forcing in SQL Server's query store, but with you actually dictating the plan not picking one the engine has created from SQL. That way SQL stays purer but you have the option of something more direct, like mixing bits of (obviously platform specific) assembler into your C or other higher-level code. There will still be terrible code created that way though – possibly much worse.