Re: questionable history

On 22 nov, 02:47, paul c <toledobythe..._at_oohay.ac> wrote:
> http://www.nou.edu.ng/noun/NOUN_OCL/pdf/pdf2/MBA%20758%20Database%20M...
>
> "IBM started working on a prototype system loosely based on Codd's
> concepts as System R in the early 1970s — unfortunately, System R
> was conceived as a way of proving Codd's ideas unimplementable, and
> thus the project was delivered to a group of programmers who were not
> under Codd's supervision, never understood his ideas fully and ended up
> violating several fundamentals of the relational model."
>
> People who knew him have told me stories about how various non-technical
> IBMers tried to obstruct or even sabotage Codd, not just attacking his
> ideas but him personally. This is the first I've seen in print that the
> official proof of concept was deliberately set up to fail. No idea
> whether it's true, didn't see any backup for one or two other claims
> either. I suppose it's patently true that this particular team couldn't
> implement his fundamental ideas. Maybe this was partly because he did
> leave certain doors open, mentioning 'further research needed' or
> suchlike here and there. But I've always had the impression that the
> System R people just didn't recognize which doors were open and which
> were closed.
Thanks paul...It is interesting to observe that the paper provided exemplifies the universal nature of Codd's work...Tha sabotage part is no surprise and should be part of science history. The honesty of Codd's to clearly state the limits of his discovery was the behavior of a scientist obsessed with truth rather than context. Received on Sun Nov 22 2009 - 14:58:51 CET