Fedora considers curl-minimal

Interesting you mention "Inform 7" - especially as it was written by a Graham Nelson.

Because one of the names of the Pick data access language was "English", another was "Inform". And it may have (although I don't think so) been written by Don Nelson, one of the architects of Pick.

(It was called English, because it is similar to English, and likewise it allows pretty complex query logic. "Without gouging your eyes out" as you so eloquently put it - and as I'm now finding with my SQL programming at work ...)

Cheers,
Wol