Talk:Relational database

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 (article contribs).

Databases Template

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

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus to merge ... (This 2012 discussion was succeeded by a later discussion)

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The article Relational database management system should be merged with the Relational database management systems section of the Relational database article.

That section starts with "Main article: Relational database management system" but that very section actually has much more content than the "main article" itself which has only 4 lines of text.

While having only 4 lines of text, the Relational database management system article is marked with {{refimprove}} since March 2009 and has some other problems as well (see: Talk:Relational database management system).

All of the redirects:

• PRDBMS
• RDBMS
• RDBMSs
• RDBS
• Relational DBMS
• Relational Database Management System
• Relational Database Management Systems
• Relational database management systems
• Relational database system
• Truly relational database management system

redirect to Relational database management system which doesn't even link to Relational database (outside of the Template:Databases navbox below the External links) while one actually needs to read Relational database to learn anything at all about the relational database management systems. The only 3 links in the Relational database management system article are to: database management system, relational model and E. F. Codd.

Considering all of the above my proposal is to merge any content that isn't already there from Relational database management system into the Relational database#Relational database management systems section and make Relational database management system a redirect to Relational database#Relational database management systems. —Rafał Pocztarski, Rfl (talk | contribs) 22:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think not: while a RDBMS is a system that allows creation of RDB:s, the articles won't profit from mixing implementation and system issues with the theoretical aspects of RDB:s, normal forms and such, and RDB:s compared with ODB:s. I think the best thing is to leave them separate. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 09:56, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

What we need is some reorganization of the articles. A merger is not the first thing I would think of. Maybe better links? Or an infobox? --Uncle Ed (talk) 04:49, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the Relational database management system article almost approaches "worse than nothing" quality. The External Links section is longer than the body, and is truly arbitrary, POV, and poorly-written. A reorganization that greatly improved it would be fine, but I don't think we should wait on such a hypothetical event, when the fairly substantial Relational Database article provides much better info, now. I just happened on the RDBMS article, and couldn't imagine Wikipedia had so little information about one of the technologies it's built upon. In fact there is better information, and the existing RDBMS article mostly stands in its way. I'm strongly in favor of the proposed merger. Which you probably guessed by now; pardon me if I'm intemperate. Thanks. Ale And Quail (talk) 04:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

• Pragmatic housekeeping: Closing discussion after 7 years ... superceded by #New merger proposal. Djm-leighpark (talk) 11:37, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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 Lfstevens [1] 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)

@Maltimore: I am on the road and still livid about the troll allegations in your summary. The 1969 came from Old revision of Relational_database_management_system 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)

• 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.

In short ... article is available for normal improvements. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts! Lfstevens (talk) 18:35, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Questionable cite?

The article says

Virtually all relational database systems use SQL (Structured Query Language) for querying and maintaining the database.[2]

The cite given for this is http://www.agiledata.org/essays/relationalDatabases.html, however that info doesn't seem to be mentioned in the article. - 2804:14D:5C59:8300:0:0:0:1000 (talk) 19:44, 16 August 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)