Re: An anecdote about Codd on the "back side" of Wikipedia
From: Nicola <nvitacolonna_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 22:00:13 +0200
Message-ID: <mmf28d$89r$1_at_adenine.netfront.net>
>> I have stumbled upon the Talk page about Codd in Wikipedia:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Edgar_F._Codd
>>
>> where a user has posted the following story:
>>
>> «Starting in 1967, Luther J. Woodrum implemented a searchable patent>
>> database at IBM using the APL language. The database was arranged>
>> similar to a large No-SQL table with classes and sub-classes
>> associated> with the patent number. The classes and sub-classes
>> represented the> different searchable fields (columns), eg Inventor,
>> Assignee, Filing> Date, Claims, etc for any patent. The database held
>> several million> world-wide patents that were relevant to IBM's
>> business interests. The> API also had a Boolean based query capability
>> which Luther described as> n-tuple relational operators. Luther
>> presented this as an example of a> "database" system in 1970 at his
>> Poughkeepsie IBM Education Center> class. Ted Codd was a student in
>> this class.»
>>
>> This anecdote seems to imply that Codd may have been influenced by the>
>> work of L.J. Woodrum (of whom I've found only a couple of references
>> in> DBLP and a LinkedIn profile). Of course, in 1970 Codd had already>
>> written about the relational model (maybe the poster misremembering?),>
>> and applications of relational formalisms to data were not new (see
>> the> work by Levein and Maron, cited by Codd itself) but if the above
>> were> true, I think it would be interesting from a historical point of
>> view,> and it would be interesting to know more about that system at
>> IBM.
>>
>> Nicola
>>
>> --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news_at_netfront.net ---
>
> That does sound interesting. Have you found out any more?
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 22:00:13 +0200
Message-ID: <mmf28d$89r$1_at_adenine.netfront.net>
On 2015-06-23 18:16:14 +0000, Ed Prochak said:
> On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 4:41:42 PM UTC-4, Nicola wrote:
>> I have stumbled upon the Talk page about Codd in Wikipedia:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Edgar_F._Codd
>>
>> where a user has posted the following story:
>>
>> «Starting in 1967, Luther J. Woodrum implemented a searchable patent>
>> database at IBM using the APL language. The database was arranged>
>> similar to a large No-SQL table with classes and sub-classes
>> associated> with the patent number. The classes and sub-classes
>> represented the> different searchable fields (columns), eg Inventor,
>> Assignee, Filing> Date, Claims, etc for any patent. The database held
>> several million> world-wide patents that were relevant to IBM's
>> business interests. The> API also had a Boolean based query capability
>> which Luther described as> n-tuple relational operators. Luther
>> presented this as an example of a> "database" system in 1970 at his
>> Poughkeepsie IBM Education Center> class. Ted Codd was a student in
>> this class.»
>>
>> This anecdote seems to imply that Codd may have been influenced by the>
>> work of L.J. Woodrum (of whom I've found only a couple of references
>> in> DBLP and a LinkedIn profile). Of course, in 1970 Codd had already>
>> written about the relational model (maybe the poster misremembering?),>
>> and applications of relational formalisms to data were not new (see
>> the> work by Levein and Maron, cited by Codd itself) but if the above
>> were> true, I think it would be interesting from a historical point of
>> view,> and it would be interesting to know more about that system at
>> IBM.
>>
>> Nicola
>>
>> --- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news_at_netfront.net ---
>
> That does sound interesting. Have you found out any more?
No. From the profile on LinkedIn it seems like he might be the guy, but I don't know if it is possible to contact him through LinkedIn to ask for a comment.
In fact, I was hoping that someone would reply saying: "Ah, I wrote that comment!" But now I am not positive about finding more details.
Nicola
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