Re: Date's First Great Blunder

From: Eric Kaun <ekaun_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 17:04:51 GMT
Message-ID: <TKchc.805$1x1.152_at_newssvr15.news.prodigy.com>


"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote in message news:c6382u$k4p$1_at_news.netins.net...
> "Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:Rrydnbg_-7AFmBjdRVn-tA_at_comcast.com...
> > I expect that, if you dig deep enough, you'll find that the terms
> > "hierarchical data model" and "network data model" predate the
> relational
> > data model.
> >
> > These are just two places to start the search.
>
> I've searched -- I haven't found them. My assessment is that there
> certainly could have been a person who uttered the words "hierarchical
> database" when talking about IMS prior to 1970, but so far I have not
found
> anything in writing referring to hierarchical or network database prior to
> Codd's 1970 ACM paper. I suspect it is historically accurate that
> relational theorists coined these terms or at least standardized on them
for
> discussions of why relational was a better strategy. If someone has
> evidence to the contrary, I'm very interested.

I don't have any evidence either way, but I would imagine the relationalists could have found better rhetorical and disparaging terms than "hierarchical" and "network". Neither of those terms suggests anything on its own, nor is either one inaccurate in any significant way (as far as I know).

  • erk
Received on Tue Apr 20 2004 - 19:04:51 CEST

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