How to store data when SQL sucks

Is SQLite the only option for data storage in a cross-platform desktop app? WTF?

SQL is such a broken leaky abstraction and most NoSQL stuff is even worse (JSON for queries? Seriously?). Either way though none of that helps desktop apps unless you want to manage a separate database process.

I'm tempted to write my own B+tree impl but that's like a pain in the ass. Where is libpersistent-data-structures that I can drop into my project?

>>2
You lose compile-time checks and it's more verbose (with prepared statements). Then you get the query optimizer that just adds uncertainty to whether it will optimize the query correctly (rewriting queries to get the optimizer to do the right thing?).

I don't hate NoSQL, but I don't know of any NoSQL databases that get it right.

>>4
There are still a lot of file systems that don't like having millions of small files dumped on them (think 100x overhead). With a real data structure, I could store more than one piece of data per file and still be able to do fast lookups.

>>6
Hush, grownups are talking.