Relational Roots
In this class, we will discuss the roots of databases by going back to
the basics, starting with the original relational model paper, and
seeing what happened with an early seminal system. There
are two readings:
- E.F. Codd. A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data
Banks. CACM 13(6), 1970, pp. 377-387. We are reading this paper to
see how all of relational databases got started, and to get a good
background of what happened.
- Donald D. Chamberlin, Morton M. Astrahan, Mike W. Blasgen, Jim
Gray, W. Frank King III, Bruce G. Lindsay, Raymond A. Lorie, James
W. Mehl, Thomas G. Price, Gianfranco R. Putzolu, Patricia G. Selinger,
Mario Schkolnick, Donald R. Slutz, Irving L. Traiger, Bradford
W. Wade, Robert A. Yost: A History and Evaluation of System
R. Commun. ACM 24(10): 632-646 (1981). We are reading this paper
because it tells the history of a seminal system that fully explored
Codd's ideas, and it also lays the ground for understanding how
System-R is the pre-cursor of the modern query optimizer.
To successfully complete this reading, be ready to write a good
response and be prepared for a good in class discussion, I suggest the
following strategy:
- For Codd's paper, don't worry about making sure that you have the
full details of the proposal understood. Instead, concentrate on
making sure that you understand his motivations for what he has
proposed, and how that helped, and perhaps some things that he may
have underestimated. Also note how things have changed since the
original proposal, including the basic data model, and what are
considered the important query language building blocks.
- For the System-R paper, read the rest of the paper, but only skim
section 4, to get an idea of what types of evaluation methods were
used. Don't bother reading over all of the details in section 4.
If you're interested in more about the more gossipy side of System-R,
you can check it out here
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Rachel Pottinger
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Office Location: CICSR 345
Phone: (604)822-0436
Fax:(604)822-5485
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