Edgar Codd, a former RAF flying-boat pilot working at IBM, published thirteen pages in 1970 arguing that data belongs in plain tables and that the machine, not the user, should work out how to find it. IBM had a rival product to protect. Ray Boyce and Don Chamberlin gave the idea a language; Boyce died days after presenting it. Patricia Selinger made it fast. Bob Miner built the version that sold, while Larry Ellison, who had read IBM's papers, was on aeroplanes.
This chapter has not been serialised yet. It will appear on Substack first, and this page will carry its opening when it does.
- In this chapter
- Edgar Codd, Ray Boyce, Don Chamberlin, Patricia Selinger, Bob Miner, Larry Ellison, Ed Oates
- The idea it builds
- Data as tables joined by shared values, a query that says what is wanted, and an optimiser that picks the cheapest way to fetch it.