It probably comes from 90% of discussion on SQL revolves around de-conflating the two. It’s pretty much impossible to complain about SQL without clarifying the difference, and even then. Really I think we should just permanently assume the other party has never conceived of such a difference, no matter how much they insist otherwise.
SQL is here to stay, if only because few can be convinced that another language could query the RDBMS directly (without first compiling down to SQL). Peolle also keep persisting in this belief it’s standardized, for god knows what reason
In abstract, I don't see a lot of downside to compiling down to SQL as an intermediate format. Or vice-versa, for that matter.
In practice:
1) Most attempts to do this historically have missed the point of an RDBMS (e.g. most ORMs).
2) SQL is cumbersome, but it's not quite cumbersome enough I'd want to bother with something else.
As a footnote, I find SQL-grade standards to be incredibly helpful. In 2022, I wish there were a strict standard, but in new domains, standards like this mean:
1) I can read code for virtually any database, with maybe gentle use of search engines, unless I get into really hairy corners. Ultimately, those, I can look up too.
2) If I write code for a new database, I don't need to learn anything; I can understand syntax with a few web searches.
3) For 90+% of SQL, I can write automatic scripts quickly and easily to translate between databases (when migrating, the remaining few percent, someone can do by hand, and it's a very tractable chore).
That's not the case jumping into a graph database or other stuff.
At the same time, they don't over-constrain things. If you want your database to have a BCD type, JavaScript stored routines, or some wonky form of virtual tables, you can.
Now, in 2022, we know enough to standardize all of this stuff, but I'm not sure we did when these tools were coming out.
As a footnote: I'm working in a domain with no standards, and if everyone could just pick JSON (or XML, or just about any one thing), we'd already have 50% of the benefit of a full standard. If people standardized a few nouns and verbs (e.g. 'user' versus 'user_id' versus 'actor' versus 'agent' versus ...), we'd be another 50% of the way there. Systems do different things, and I don't think going 100% of the way makes sense until we understand the domain better, but partial standardization is a huge win. I've been pushing hard for having partial standards, and hard for not having full standards yet.
SQL is here to stay, if only because few can be convinced that another language could query the RDBMS directly (without first compiling down to SQL). Peolle also keep persisting in this belief it’s standardized, for god knows what reason