Foundation for Future Database Systems: The Third Manifesto - Couverture souple

A detailed study of the impact of objects and type theory on the relational model of data, including a comprehensive model of type inheritance!

"This book should be recommended reading for software engineers, database designers, graduate students, undergraduate students, data modelers--for just about anybody with a serious interest in database technology."
--Declan Brady, MBCS, Lead Systems Architect, ICL

"As a database application designer/architect, I'm interested in ideals as well as in currently available tools . . . This book is a rich source of worthy ideals. In particular, it provides good coverage of areas where SQL, and much commercial Object Orientation training material, are found lacking."
--Tom Pledger, Peace International Software

Foundation for Future Database Systems: The Third Manifesto is a proposal for the future direction of data and database management systems (DBMSs). It consists of a precise, formal definition of an abstract model of data, to be considered as a blueprint for the design of a DBMS and a database language. Among other things, it provides a rock-solid foundation for integrating relational and object technologies.

The proposed foundation represents an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary one; it builds on Codd's relational model of data and on the research that sprang from that work. It also incorporates a precise and comprehensive specification for a method of defining data types, including a comprehensive model of type inheritance, to address a lack that has been observed by many authorities; thus, it also builds on research in the field of object orientation. With a sound footing in both camps of the object/relational divide, therefore, the Manifesto is offered as a firm foundation for the DBMSs of the future.

Significant features of this new edition include:

• Major extensions to the inheritance model
• Significantly improved language proposals
• Improved discussions of read-only vs. update operators, selectors, THE_ operators, tuple types vs. possible representations, grouping and ungrouping, first normal form, assignment, constraints, predicates, and many other topics
• All SQL discussions upgraded to the level of the new SQL:1999 standard
• Several new appendixes

C. J. Date is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant specializing in relational database systems, a field he helped pioneer. Among other projects, he was involved in technical planning for the IBM products SQL/DS and DB2. He is best known for his books, in particular, An Introduction to Database Systems (7th edition, Addison-Wesley, 2000), the standard text in the field, which has sold well over half a million copies worldwide. Mr. Date is widely acknowledged for his ability to explain complex technical material in a clear and understandable fashion.

Hugh Darwen has been involved in software development since 1967 as an employee of IBM United Kingdom, Ltd. He has been active in the relational database arena since 1978. He was one of the chief architects and developers of an IBM relational product called Business System 12, a product that faithfully embraced the principles of the relational model. He has been an active participant in the development of SQL international standards since 1988.