Talk:Relational database

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 September 2020 and 7 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LBJJames.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Databases Template
Added the Databases Template to the page because this page is referenced by the template and it provides useful context to the subject.

Points following April 2019 merger.
Thankyou everyone who contributed to the merge discussion. In general I focused towards a loss-less merge under procedure rather than attempting to achieve a more perfect result in terms of content. People will note somewhat of a 'wing-it technique under an In-use'' banner rather than pre-prepare in sandbox ... The latter can be better but also risks someone forking the main article in the interim. Wahtever in all events the result is open to normal editing rules but I'll point out the following:
 * I used  as a rough guideline which was helpful, but I also noticed I may not have duplicated some of those improvements (certainly some header section renames and I think a little in the history section}}.  I wished to avoid Should I?/Shouldn't? in the middle of the merge operation and leave that for others later.
 * When doing the history section I because a little concerned about how the initial dates were working especially with the Micro Database of 1969 preceding Codd 1970. This possibly needs a check as there was a lot of research around that time.  I've templated the section with a semi-appropriate as a means of saying ... check and review this ....
 * See and investigate MICRO Relational Database Management System with regards to this ... where there are sources.... Djm-leighpark (talk) 10:51, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I can think of a lot of reasons why the paper from Codd came out in 1970 and the Micro database being dated 1969. By the time a paper is actually published, you could've been talking to other researchers about the topic for years. Also, if you put in a tag in the actual article, it should at least be well-formatted and not just an off-hand comment with an ellipsis (...) in the end. Maltimore (talk) 13:19, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In fact, the wikipedia page of MICRO has this interesting fact: "Though MICRO was initially considered to be an "Information Management System", it was eventually recognized to provide all the capabilities of an RDBMS." So that pretty much explains how it could predate Codd 1970, doesn't it? Maltimore (talk) 13:34, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * @: I am on the road and still livid about the troll allegations in your summary. The 1969 came from  which was merged to this page, predating Codd 1970.  It came up during the merge of April 2019 and I had only the barest time to examine the claim then, and perhaps the barest amount of time to look at it today as I'm on the road.  The 1969 claim may have some credibility and validity, or it may not, and it may be worthy of history, or it may not.  It is likely best discussed on its own section.  I would certainly been wrong on merge to have totally ignored it.  Thankyou.  Prehaps I should hold a vote on having a sock account djm-troll?  Djm-leighpark (talk) 14:18, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for saying in my edit message that it sounded like a troll edit. I did not research who put that tag there, I just saw the tag and that it was written in really informal style (spelling was off, ellipsis in the end, didn't fit in with the tag text). About the 1969/1970 issue: my point is that it's not important whether MICRO predates the 1970 paper by Codd slightly. Codd may still have coined the term in this 1970 paper, and and what was essentially an implementation on it may have been done slightly before that. There's no contradiction Maltimore (talk) 15:27, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Having got home and begun investigating this the first thing (or maybe second) to do was to create a stub article for David L. Childs! who might yet appear here. 1969 everyone else was looking at Lunar landings and I'm looking over at the Isle of Slingers at Codd's birthplace.  I'm missing something about the history of MICRO relational database management system and it was likely not branded that in 1969/70.  I return if I ever get a clear head.Djm-leighpark (talk) 23:08, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

In short ... article is available for normal improvements. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * As you may have noticed I had kludged up a definition for the RDBMS ssection to make it work as a redirect target. Having worked out most of the merged in article I was left with the lede from the Relational Dataabse managmeent system article.  I was looking at at and thinking do I delete it ?  Do I try to see if it is any good.  Is it contents any good or does it have issues.  Then I had a brainwave ... put it in the RDBMS section.  So I sort of kludged it pretty well as tagged onto the bottom of the definition I had provided out of Begg/Connolly which I obvious have COI interest in retaining.  Anyway that is how the RDBMS section got populated with what its now got and may help people understand how it got to be how it is rather than thinking I may had a subtle clever reason.  The section may need improvement.
 * Thanks for your efforts! Lfstevens (talk) 18:35, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Please clarify first commercial database for visitors
The article states that Relational Software released the first commercial relational database in 1979. It also states that the first RDBMS sold was Multics Relational Store in 1978. If it was sold, wasn't it commercial? But, IBM sold System R to customers (Pratt & Whitney) I believe as early as 1977 and that is not even mentioned here. If they sold it, it was a supported product, therefore commercial. I'm old enough to remember that; maybe that is unfortunate :)

To be clear, I am not trying to argue here the point of who is first, you may have your own conditions for that definition. I was pointing a student at this article and then I realized that this information needs to be clarified. Maybe Relational Software/Oracle was the first to sell a significant number of copies? Maybe the definition of commercial used here needs to be stated?

Jmussman (talk) 17:44, 19 October 2019 (UTC)


 * A possible claim by MICRO Relational Database Management System might be interesting ... depending how much one considers David L. Childs [:set-theoretic]] work on MICRO Relational Database Management System is relevant to Codds work .... Djm-leighpark (talk) 23:05, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

This article lacks a Criticisms/disadvantages section
NoSQL databases were invented for a reason, but judging from this article, no such reason exists, and neither do alternative database types eg noSQL. An opportunity exists for making this article more comprehensive. FreeFlow99 (talk) 11:07, 28 July 2021 (UTC)