Re: Database schema for univesal usage

From: Jan Hidders <jan.hidders_at_REMOVETHIS.pandora.be>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 22:16:21 GMT
Message-ID: <Vm5ne.106951$Iv7.6469734@phobos.telenet-ops.be>

Kenneth Downs wrote:

> Jan Hidders wrote:

>>mountain man wrote:
>>
>>>It was a brief discussion only for the purpose of asking the
>>>following two questions which have not yet been answered:
>>>
>>>1) Is it clear/true that Date's "abstract machine" necessarily
>>> evolves due to change management considerations over
>>> time? (eg: expansion of business to include widgets)
>>
>>Yes, this is usually known as "schema evolution" and used to be a
>>popular research subject in the database and data modelling communities.

> 
> What came of that research?  (I'm googling as we speak, but wondering about
> your take on it).

I don't think I can tell you much more than you already found by Googling. It sort of died out in the second half of the nineties. As far as I remember there didn't seem to be a big consensus on what the best solution was and some argued that good view-support was the answer and others that you needed temporal support, and some said you needed both.

Note by the way that this is more about the question "how should the ideal DBMS support this?" and not so much about "how to approach this problem with existing technologies?".

• Jan Hidders

Received on Tue May 31 2005 - 17:16:21 CDT