“Isn’t it ironic that in 2016 a non-skilled user can find a web page from Google’s untold petabytes of data in millisecond time, but a highly trained SQL expert can’t do the same thing in a relational database one billionth the size?.–Jim Starkey.

I have interviewed Jim Starkey. A database legend, Jim’s career as an entrepreneur, architect, and innovator spans more than three decades of database history.

RVZ

Q1. In your opinion, what are the most significant advances in databases in the last few years?

Jim Starkey: I’d have to say the “atom programming model” where a database is layered on a substrate of peer-to-peer replicating distributed objects rather than disk files. The atom programming model enables scalability, redundancy, high availability, and distribution not available in traditional, disk-based database …

Wikipedia says that “Relational calculus is essentially equivalent to first-order logic, and indeed, Codd’s Theorem had been known to logicians since the late 1940s.”  I couldn’t find the cited sources online, but did find these interesting papers:

“Applications of Alfred Tarski’s Ideas in Database Theory”

and

“Tarski’s influence on computer science.” (see the section starting “The final thing I want to tell something about is the connection of Tarski’s ideas and work with database theory.”)

If you’ve studied mathematical logic (or math, eg, topology), you are probably familiar with Tarski’s name.  The historical …