OT: I hope that is the case. I've been responsible for building query-like tools for end users, and all the current stuff out there completely sucks.
For example, no non-programmer I've ever talked to can correctly explain the difference between:
A and B or C
A and C or B
And to be fair, it's only because of arbitrary precedence rule choices that those are different at all.
I've personally found that dealing with groups and instead of having "AND, OR" you have "ALL, ANY" and always group rules (even if they're groups of one rule).
But even when you have that, you then have to deal with nesting rules, and nests of nests.
The actual implementation of the backend of such systems is easy, the composite pattern / delegates pretty much deals with the implementation.
But the front-end side? They tend to then be forgotten and universally suck, to the point that either it gets handed off to a developer or query-tool expert to use, or some horrific mistake such as accidentally mail-shotting everyone[1] which causes them to never try to have automatic query rules again.
Graphical query building for the end-user is a really difficult area which hasn't seen enough research.
[1] I want to mail Visited Yesterday And are either Men Or Under 30. Instead of "Visit > Yesterday AND (Men OR Under 30). They forget the brackets. Whoops, that's half their clients hit.
For example, no non-programmer I've ever talked to can correctly explain the difference between:
A and B or C
A and C or B
And to be fair, it's only because of arbitrary precedence rule choices that those are different at all.
I've personally found that dealing with groups and instead of having "AND, OR" you have "ALL, ANY" and always group rules (even if they're groups of one rule).
But even when you have that, you then have to deal with nesting rules, and nests of nests.
The actual implementation of the backend of such systems is easy, the composite pattern / delegates pretty much deals with the implementation.
But the front-end side? They tend to then be forgotten and universally suck, to the point that either it gets handed off to a developer or query-tool expert to use, or some horrific mistake such as accidentally mail-shotting everyone[1] which causes them to never try to have automatic query rules again.
Graphical query building for the end-user is a really difficult area which hasn't seen enough research.
[1] I want to mail Visited Yesterday And are either Men Or Under 30. Instead of "Visit > Yesterday AND (Men OR Under 30). They forget the brackets. Whoops, that's half their clients hit.