>>>Can you - officially, on behalf of Microsoft - confirm 1) and 2), and can you confirm also that the documentation would have been, at the least, better if it had stated these facts?
>>
>>Hi Peter,
>>
>>In general, those two assumptions are wrong.
>>Yes, documentation would be better. However, the fact that SQL is declarative is a well known fact (it is the main feature of the SQL language).
>
>Where can I read about 'declarative'?

Declarative it means that:
You declare a rule of transformation in a space of data and rules.
The "declative rule" (DR) is described with a syntax and the engine
that it uses the (DR) it is free to use it as it wants,
that is to appraise the elements in any order and how many times it wants.
Because the rule reproduces the same result,
every element has to be deterministic and stateless.

A simple example:
it is not had to use DATE(), DATETIME(), TIME(), SECONDS()..
because you cannot be said how many times VFP appraises these functions.
In SQL Server the Team have resolved the problem, appraising GETDATE()
an only time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_programming
http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Research/LanguagesArchitecture/projects/decl.html