Re: [ANNOUNCE] LEAP RDBMS v1.2.5.2

From: Richard Leyton <rleyton_at_acm.org>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 15:27:12 +0100
Message-ID: <3b0bc8cd$1@news2lo.highwayone.net>

steve.tolkin_at_fmr.com wrote:

> This looks interesting if you want to study the implementation.  But
> it seems to be of little practical use right now, e.g. the
> documentation states that it only supports the string data type.

Well, it does also support boolean and integers, but you're right to say "lilttle practical use" - it's designed as an educational tool to help students understand database theory, not to be incorporated into a companies accounts system (although never say never!)

Pick up any book on database theory, and there will be a section on relational algebra. What LEAP first aims to allow students to do is to practice what they see presented as merely a theoretical underpinning to more "advanced" query languages, notably SQL. (Chris Date's "An Introduction to Database Systems" and Stefan Stanczyk's "Theory and Practice of Relational Databases" (2nd Edition coming out in the next month or two) are included as example databases in LEAP). By developing a better understanding of the r.algebra, students can (hopefully) go on to better understand SQL.

The implementation of LEAP is simple, but it's a good (simple) foundation for implementing relational operators, so students can further build on their understanding of the algorithms used. Other RDBMS's, being geared towards commercial use, can be overly complicated for undergraduate database students, who may not necessarily be programming gurus.

> Also, the Windows binary install requires cygwin (the file > cygwinb19.dll is included).

Nothing further is needed to be downloaded, other than WinLEAP itself. A full installation of Cygwin is needed though if you plan to recompile it yourself on a windows platform, but not to run it.

> Hopefully helpfully yours,

Certainly!

;-)

Regards,

Richard.
rleyton_at_acm.org richard_at_leyton.org
http://leap.sourceforge.net
http://www.leyton.org

> Steve
> 
> 
> Richard Leyton <richard_at_leyton.org> writes:

>> This post is to announce the release of v1.2.5.2 of the LEAP RDBMS, and a
>> completely redesigned home page that is hopefully much clearer and more
>> informative.
>>
>> LEAP is a free relational database management system (RDBMS) that is
>> used by an increasing number of universities around the world as a part
>> of their database courses. LEAP fully supports the relational algebra,
>> and the behavioral components of the relational model. It is intended
>> as a teaching tool and foundation for further work.
>>
>> Full information, download details, a demonstration, and online user
>> guides, are all available from the LEAP web pages:
>>
>> http://leap.sf.net
>>
>> or:
>>
>> http://sf.net/projects/leap
>>
>> LEAP is under constant development, and supports a wide range of
>> Operating systems including Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Windows 95/NT, AIX
>> and others. LEAP is distributed under the terms of the GNU General
>> Public License. The standard distribution contains full 'C' source code,
>> full documentation, and plenty of examples from popular Database books
>> (C.J.Date and S.Stanczyk). There are also now precompiled versions of
>> LEAP for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD.
>>
>> To download LEAP, visit:
>>
>> http://sf.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=44
>>
>> There is also a mailing list for news, announcements and developments
>> regarding LEAP, available at:
>>
>> http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leap-announce
>>
>> Any questions can be e-mailed to myself, or posted to this newsgroup.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Richard Leyton
>> (LEAP Author)
>> --
>> Richard Leyton
>> rleyton_at_acm.org or richard_at_leyton.org
>> http://www.leyton.org
>>

> Received on Wed May 23 2001 - 09:27:12 CDT