ON HISTORY OF DATA MANAGEMENT

From: Eric Macaulay

Date: 22 Sep 2005

Have you considered writing a comprehensive paper on the history of data management from the hierarchical and network models through to the relational model. Having the history documented by someone who actually knows what he's talking about would, I think, be very much appreciated by DBDebunk readers.

From: Fabian Pascal

This was done by Date in various earlier editions of his AN INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE SYSTEMS; see also his more recent SELECTED WRITINGS 1991-1994. And I'm sure there are other sources with such info for those interested.

Today's practitioners, be they users, vendors, or pundits, consider history useless and that only current stuff is worth anything, even though it's either worthless, or even obsolete. So the audience would be too small to make it worthwhile, and it would not be the one who needs to be educated anyway.

Ed. Note: The history of the field should be an obligatory part of computer science curriculum, but I won’t hold my breath. The academia is increasingly focused on product training for vendors rather than on education.

Those who forget, or dismiss the past ...

Posted 12/03/05