Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!daveb From: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Network vs. Relational DBMSs Summary: versus? smursis! Message-ID: <2054@geac.UUCP> Date: 3 Jan 88 17:12:27 GMT Article-I.D.: geac.2054 Posted: Sun Jan 3 12:12:27 1988 References: <2550@sfsup.UUCP> <495@hscfvax.harvard.edu> Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) Organization: The little blue rock next to that twinkly star. Lines: 30 >In article <2550@sfsup.UUCP>, prj@sfsup.UUCP (P.Jayne) writes: >> There aren't a lot of defenders of pre-relational DBMSs out there it seems. >> I can no longer resist jumping into this. I've been doing database and >> datacomm for over ten years now, .................... >> >> The Brooklyn Bridge is up for sale again, and there are lots of buyers... >> ... (treatise on why relational dbms's don't cut it) Rather than continuing with a mixed factual/religious debate, I'm just going to throw in a comment re use "out there": Research in database theory has yielded the Entity-Relation model, (or the entity-category-relation model) which subsumes the "network" and "relational" models, and points out areas where they both fall down. Wait a while, there's a new religion coming! ((:-)) There's also an implementation of an e-r database manager in existance (Zim, from a company in Ottawa). Computer manufacturers who understand the subset of the relational and network models which are co-representable have provided "relational access managers" for existing network databases, which provide the illusion of being able to do most of the relational operations on fairly broad views of network databases. The best example is argueably (Honeywell-) Bull although other manufacturers and dbms vendors also are trying to catch up... -- David Collier-Brown. {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb Geac Computers International Inc., | Computer Science loses its 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, | memory (if not its mind) CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 | every 6 months.