Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!liuida!gorry
From: gorry@smidefix.liu.se (Goran Rydquist)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Database implementation/theory issues?
Message-ID: <725@smidefix.liu.se>
Date: 22 Feb 88 20:55:56 GMT
References: <33671UH2@PSUVM> <232@cullsj.UUCP>
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
Lines: 27

In article <232@cullsj.UUCP> gupta@cullsj.UUCP (Yogesh Gupta) writes:
>I find that this group does not have much discussion about
>either the theory or the implementation of DBMS issues.

I'd like to start! 

The greatest evil in today database theory is the unquestioned (?) assumption
that the data model must be based on records. This is true for all three of
the accepted and currently used data models, namely the hierarchical, the
network and the relational models.

I quote:
	Models which provide additional file structure around the records 
	(eg sequencing, hierarchies, CODASYL networks) overcome some of the
	functional limitations of records. None of the overcome all the
	limitations. Furthermore, by building on top of record structures,
	they retain all the underlying ambiguities. In some cases, they simply
	add more options for representing something which could already be
	represented in several ways in record structure. 
[W. Kent, Limitations of Record-Based Information Models", ACM Transactions on
Database Systems, vol 4, no 1, pp 107-131, March 1979]

I would like to hear comments, historical motivations, views etc.

---
Goran Rydqvist			gorry@majestix.liu.se
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