Re: Pre-relational, post-relational, 1968 CODASYL "Survey of Data Base Systems"

"Ken North" <knorth2_at_deletethis.yahoo.com> wrote in message news:c6h8uh$m5j$1_at_ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...
> It's always amusing to read a description of some DBMSs as
"post-relational",
> or to read that E.F. Codd's 1970 paper about the relational model was the
> genesis of database technology.
>
> "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks", E. F. Codd
> (Communications of the ACM, Vol. 13, No. 6, June 1970)
>
> When cleaning out some old files, I found a folder with vintage-1968
documents
> related to the CODASYL Data Base Task Group. One of the documents is a
"Survey
> of Data Base Systems" dated 3 September 1968. It lists 51 database
systems, and
> identifies another 22 systems not included in the survey.
>
> The systems in that survey are predecessors of the CODASYL database
standard,
> Codd's relational model, and SQL. Three of those systems have evolved in
the 35
> years since the survey.
>
> IBM IMS is still in use. Dick Pick evolved GIM-I into the Pick database
family.
> The Mass General/BBN system evolved and is still available today as MUMPS,
M and
> Caché.

Sweet! I've been tracking down pre-SQL database information and this is most helpful. I haven't tracked ADABAS to its origins, but might that be somewhere in the pre-relational? I, too, laugh at the "post-relational" claims, often used with MUMPS or PICK products (even by companies like IBM who ought to know better, eh?).
--dawn Received on Sun Apr 25 2004 - 23:52:22 CEST