>
object-oriented databases can indeed be just as fast as and in many ways faster than relational databases
Only for a specific, hand-tuned application, and if the database never changes. For multiple applications, automatic optimising and changing databases, you need a relational system.
But obviously when you said relational you were thinking SQL, not relational.
>
How can anyone put a document such as the one he's written into a relational database?
You can either decompose the document in an ordered tree (even SQL, being subrelational, can make recursive queries to put the document together), or make XML document a supported data type.
Obviously you do not know the relational model to understand its capabilities and how different it is from what you know about SQL, or SQL itself.
>
I really don't think an relational database can do this elegantly.
Simple enough:
VAR doc REAL RELATION { element element_id, tag tag_id, content text, containing_el element_id, previous_el element_id } ;</tt>
<p>Any relational system should be able to do a recursive query. The previous_el domain needs a special value meaning "none" for the first element in a list.</p>
<p>Just one of many possible designs. Another possible one would make XML documents a domain.
>
relational databases are the best solution for most problems -- that's why they're the backbones of most apps these days.
SQL not being relational, the only apps using relational databases nowadays are the ones based on either QUEL (are there any yet?), IBM BS12 (probably none?) and Dataphor Alphora (those by SoftWise, and some few inhouse ones up to now).
>
That said, there are some cases where they fall down.
All the cases you mention are specific failures of SQL, not of the relational model.
>
Maybe it's just not possible to build a truly relational database or perhaps building one has severe cnsequences that people are not willing to accept.
You are assuming they have no historical knowledge about how the market came to be like it is now.
In fact Hugh Darwen is a current, and EF Codd and Chris J Date are former, employee(s) of IBM, involved in the creation (Codd), refinement (Codd, Date, McGoveran & Darwen) and publicising (Date, Darwen & Pascal) of the relational model and engines.
There are at least three implementations of a relational system: QUEL (as in old Ingres), BS12 (an IBM retired product by Darwen, that IBM didn't push because internal politics favoured SQL as a part of the failed F/S project) and Dataphor Alphora (a.Net translation layer over SQL).
The reason almost everyone uses SQL is herd instincts: SQL is popular, is backed by the database bullies IBM, Oracle (sorta), MS (sorta) & Sybase, and everyone will stick to that no matter what just because everyone else does. Kinda like MS-W32 vs POSIX, or procedural vs functional, or imperative vs declarative.
>
So the underlying structure of the database engine is not relevant?
Not quite. SQL adds many arbitrary restrictions to the relational model, and thus fails to implement any significant data independence capabilities. So you are quite limited on how to store SQL data, and on changing the physical schema without changing the logical and user ones.
>
You can use either SQL or the xBase language to get at the information. In the same code file.
That is actually a bad example. Not only SQL itself prevents real data independence, if one mixed a relational language (that SQL is not) to any non-relational language to access a particular database, one looses the relational data independence because the non-relational access will have assumptions on the database physical schema and access plans.
Perhaps one would be able to present a stable user schema to the non-relational parts of the application, but even then performance would suffer mightly because of access path assumptions.
>
Why not simply set up a website with Tutorial D introductions, examples, etc?
Basically because of their personal background. They have been used to big organisations, like IBM, its direct competitors and users, and standards bodies that produce books and really expensive documents.
Moreover, Chris J Date is not rich, and his living comes basically from his books. None of them are systems programmers.
Now Hugh Darwen has created The Third Manifesto, the site
, precisely to give people what you just asked.
The book itself had precisely the same objective, just that it was meant to a different world. They are still trying to grok free software and the Net as related to it.
>
Anything specific that bothers you?
First, you inspire yourself in IBM BS12, which was a good realisation of the relational model, but an early one and only an implementation anyway. The model have developed a lot in the last 20 years, and his should base his work on the fully developed version of the general idea, not on a specific realisation of it. BTW, I guess you have no other contact with BS12 than that page, so even what you can get from BS12 is very limited.
Second, xBase is really no good neither as a language nor as a database interface. Influence from it should be qualified as contamination, not information.
Third, you still use SQL terminology, and it seems that you never grasped the relational concepts from which SQL decayed in the first place.
>
If they want to promote relational, then present an open interface that all can see and play with.
OK, so let us see.
They presented sets of (1) Proscriptions, (2) Prescriptions, (3) Strong Recommendations for a valid relational database D. Moreover they have made it clear that anything abiding by (1) and (2) would qualify as a D.
Moreover, they produced an example D, named Tutorial. Their website includes a LARL Tutorial D grammar, besides links to tentative implementations, at least one of which is useable.
There are no patents.
So what else more you need for openness of a language?
Well, if you want working, free source code... be welcome to producing it!
>
People started listening to Codd when he showed some somewhat practical examples, not so much the theory mumblegook.
Actually that is not true.
No one of commercial consequence ever heard Codd, only IBM BS12 and QUEL people; now Alphora too. IBM itself decided on SQL, which Codd decidedly disavowed and tried to reform.
>
Is this turning into a my-resume-is-better-than-yours pissing contest?
It is just curiosity, because your writing gives a hint to your thought being conditioned by xBase and SQL, but mainly SQL. You do not seem to have read anything seriously relational.
>
Almost makes our Earth-bound existence sounds like sort of a chore
Yes, but what if that is true?
Quite independently from Christianism, modern philosophers have reached the same conclusion. The result was nihilism and the death of Western High Culture.
Similar was the conclusion of the Western mass culture, and the result is hedonism, AKA practical materialism.
Buddha reached the same conclusion, and the result is the only atheistic, non-secular religion in the world.
In fact, that life is a chore seems to be the consensus of most people in all cultures and ages who actually had a real life.
>
I tend to think that the world is still a very beautiful place
I assume you are either young, or rich, or superficial, or most probably all three.
And before you protest poverty, if you have access to the Net you are rich compared to most of the population currently living in planet Earth.
>
one certainly does not need angels, devils, and Jesii to enjoy it and have meaningful experiences in it.
Certainly not. But see, you are talking in the plural: experiences. Christianism never denied one could have meaningful experiences, or that one could do good things, or whatever isolated acts or phenomena.
The real thing is to have a meaningful life. And this is not in man to have, but in God to give.
As for the value in life as in respect for others, it stands to reason that if man is the sole measure of man, he can do whatever he wants provided he takes the consequences. It is only if there is a God that Absolutes come into play.
>
If somebody wants to promote a new relational language standard
Guess what, they do not want to promote a new language standard. They want to promote relational systems.
If you take the pains to read the book, you will see Tutorial D is but a sample of what a sane relational language would be. It is by no means complete, nor intended to be an standard. The idea is that other people will implement it or something like it, and that is what Alphora for an example did: D4 has nothing to do with Tutorial D apart from conforming to The Third Manifesto. More precisely, Tutorial D follows the COBOL-like IBM tradition of Alpha, QUEL and SQL while D4 is Pascal-like.
Moreover, if you take the pains to do your homework and explore the Web you will see that even the authors themselves publish a Tutorial D grammar online, and several tentative implementation proposals besides.
About your work, Tablizer, it needs work... you still have to fully understand the relational model, and do away with SQL and navigational concepts. Much of what you say in your articles is simply a less clear form of relational algebra.
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Chris Date allegedly has designed such a language, but it is not available
>
weren't the early versions of PICK based on a concept such as this?
As for the DBMS part, yes, Pick was a DBMS-based OS. But not for the relational part, because Picke was never relational, and any non-relational system is so limited to really not be much of an advantage anyway.
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Every Relational DB I've ever used has a SQL interface.
SQL is not relational, the latest versions of the related standard do not even use the word relational or the concepts of the relational model.
By violating principles, adding arbitrary restrictions and being too complex SQL robs us of simplicity, power and speed the relational model is capable of delivering.
This is a big issue. I recomment you read whatever you can get your hands on from Chris J Date, Hugh Darwen, Fabian Pascal, David McGoveran and E F "Ted" Codd.
>
That was done pre-UNIX with PICK. The whole O/S was a database.
Pick was never relational.
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the relational model is long overdue for the garbage pail. Modern programming languages since C have used pointers or object references.
We are talking different levels. Pointers, C and the like are system programming. The relational model is for applications programming. Perhaps Lisp or something the like could bridge these levels, but in principle they are different. And even C could use relational storage.
SQL is not good enough, because it subtract features, add arbitrary restrictions and is not as simple and powerful as the relational model for database management.
What we really need is a really relational, full DBMS (with sane defaults) as the fundamental storage component of an OS.
>
roaming with CDMA just as possible as with GSM -- as long as you are in an area where CDMA is supported, which for in India is nationwide
OK, but step outside of your borders and you're effectively mute.
>
handsets in the CDMA world (also in the European GSM world, afaik) are routinely subsidized by the vendor, so I'm really not too sure this is a big deal.
Subsidising is always done in hope of recoupling it later. So if costs are higher, tariffs will have to be higher too sooner or later.
>
*No*. That's the whole point. Because introducing 2.5G requires dedicated spectrum, and rolling 3G requires new spectrum (that they can't use for vanilla GSM -- effectively 3G GSM == WCDMA == CDMA, and W-CDMA has royalties on it just as CDMA 2000 has).
That's sad...
Anyway, it will only be an advantage if 3G flies.
A point: I guess W-CDMA isn't an international standard as GSM is?
>
if all GSM vendors move onto 3G (W-CDMA)or GPRS, and abandon vanilla GSM service
That is not an option. GSM will always be there for (lots of) people who wanna but talk.
>
I think Linux has a very bright future inside cellphones, but I don't think the air interface really matters to the OS powering the phone's apps. Conversely, the OS doesn't really matter to the telco.
>
Reliance is trying to get full-fledged roaming licenses as well. If it succeeds, users *will* get roaming.
Not without GSM, AFAIU.
>
In a large, price-sensitive market like India, prices do crash. GSM phones started in India at Rs12,000+, they can now be had at sub-3,000 levels.
CDMA is already present in the US, some of Latin America and some of the Far East. Yet handsets are routinely more expensive, late and with less options than the comparable GSM ones. The exception seems to be some PalmOS phones such as the Kyocera ones.
>
No reason to believe the same won't happen to the CDMA market.
One reason: Qualcom patent royalties. Another: absence of universal standard hinders economies of scale.
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it'll be very interesting to watch MS' reaction as cheap J2ME phones (instead of their beloved Stingers) flood the market
Agreed, but this has nothing to do with GSM vs CDMA.
>
the customer does benefit in a very direct way -- lower call charges.
I understand this is just a regulatory aberration specific to braindamaged Indian policy hostile to GSM, that is about to change anyway?
Again, this has nothing to do with CDMA vs GSM AFAIK.
>
The key word here is 'if' -- if they introduce 3G in the first place (remember, it'll cost 'em big money!)
Yes, but again this is just a dumb regulatory issue that should go away?
Unless you are meaning that even the GSM investments have hardly paid off yet. But this is true all over the world, and I can hardly see how a new operator, fighting uphill against already entrenched ones, has a better chance of breaking even and providing investors with some ROI.
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Indian GSM operators have been a bunch of lazy bums 'til now, not introducing any new services (barring, as another poster mentioned, BPL in Bombay with GPRS) with the excuse that "we're hardly making any money".
This is not an excuse, it is true. Only big executive managers are making money, not the investors for sure. And this reminds me of another question: is there, or will there be, any market for GSM at all? It might be nice, but we would need at least better and cheaper Palm OS, GNU/Linux and Java phones, and even then I do not see it as a given.
>
Systems don't become usable by having a good theoretical foundation, systems become usable by taking into account principles of cognitive science and psychology in their design, and by adapting to the needs of their users over time.
We are not talking in the same level here.
What you say is valid for a user interface. I am interested in the conceptual level. Both are right in their own spheres, but no user interface can fix a flawed concept.
Moreover, fixing flawed concepts with user interfaces leads to feature creeping and bloat. As can be seen with SQL and associated tools.
>
Object oriented databases, functional databases, knowledge representation systems, and logical databases, to name just a few.
Taking a hint from Fabian Pascal, none of these are sane. Either they do not qualify as general data models, or they get important characteristics wrong.
Try comparing any of them with the relational model. Try naming advantages. You cannot, because there are not any.
People who advocate alternative so-called models generally never understood the relational model in the first place, and usually did not even understand what a data model is.
>
Fortunately, these things will not be decided by your insults or put-downs, but by the market.
Sorry if you feel insulted, but it is my way of trying to make you see you need to educate yourself.
But that the market decides is usually unfortunate. Just see LISP vs C, IBM vs many others (in mainframe era), MS vs open systems, NeWS vs X, SQL vs relational.
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I don't see anything replacing SQL when it comes to the preferred language for querying relational databases
You seem to be carefully avoiding the point that SQL is not relational anymore. From the start it was only a contrafaction of the relational model, adding lots of complexity and arbitrary restrictions. And now, just when it was finally acquiring relational completeness, it has ditched the relational model completely, not even using relational concepts, much less terminology, in the standards documents.
>
while SQL isn't much of a language, people know it and it has evolved to the point where it gets the job done. I do, however, see an increasing reliance on non-relational databases in the market.
That proves again you do not understand the identity and the power of the relational model. People use non-relational databases, obviously, because SQL itself is not relational. But people use aberrations like OODBs and the such because they do not understand that what they are looking for beyond SQL can be better found, and much simpler too, in the relational model.
And even if it sells, is it to the best interest of users and investors? I mean, it still could go wrong because it is not standard and because it commands high royalties to Qualcom. Users are blocked from roaming, have to pay more for handsets, and cannot use them in other networks and countries if they move or simply decide to change operators. Investors could see their assets devaluated if GSM 3G succeeds and leave CDMA 3G as a niche, especially if GSM operator license fees are lowered by governments, as it would be fair to do.
>
any reasonable database system and query language should be Turing complete.
Not necessarily. Turing completeness is required basically for the definition of operators on new types. I agree that modern RDBMSs should have this.
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no matter what front-end you put onto it, you can express the same queries in it.
You are thinking programming. Yes, you can program anything. But if you don't comply with the relational model, you get no performance improvements, no ease of use, no data independence. Please study the relational model, you will see what I mean.
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On the one hand, you claim it single-handedly changed the field, on the other hand, you claim nobody is actually implementing it. Which is it?
Both. There are people implementing it, I pointed to three existing implementations, one of them modern. If you cared to visit the URL I pointed you too, you would see other projects.
And even if these implementations were and still are overshadowed in the market by SQL, whatever qualities SQL still have were inherited from its imperfect foundations on the relational model. Too bad marketroids got in the way.
>
Good theoretical foundations are neither necessary nor sufficient for building good practical systems.
Man, where do you live? The moon? You do not know what you are talking about. Ever heard of Dijkstra's contributions, just for an instance? Not to mention that yourself just used Turing as a model to evaluate a language...
Also, it is clear you don't realise the power of the relational model. Please do your reading. This is not only programming. It is about providing a useful, agreed-upon, powerful, logical, abstract data model.
>
there are many other ways for translating set theory and predicate calculus into database systems.
For example?
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Date and Darwen's approach seems woefully dusty and cumbersome; those guys are stuck somewhere in the 1960's, and they completely muddle up issues of syntax, data representation, algorithms, and abstractions.
Huh? And what better appeared since the 60s? Do you have a pointer to prove your muddling up allegations?
It is crystal clear you never read them properly if at all. Either that or your thought is too muddled by OO to be able to analyse the issues at hand.
Slashdot Mirror
Only for a specific, hand-tuned application, and if the database never changes. For multiple applications, automatic optimising and changing databases, you need a relational system.
But obviously when you said relational you were thinking SQL, not relational.
You can either decompose the document in an ordered tree (even SQL, being subrelational, can make recursive queries to put the document together), or make XML document a supported data type.
Obviously you do not know the relational model to understand its capabilities and how different it is from what you know about SQL, or SQL itself.
Simple enough:
So we should call relational databases something else, like X, and leave the relational name for SQL?
Now, what happens when someone comes calling his product X even if it is not conforming to the relational model Y?
Perhaps we should not allow vendors to implement their Newspeak in the first place.
These examples were never intended to be a compliance test, and many are in SQL anyway for convenience.
Not if document, or a reasonable subdivision of it (section?) is a data type.
They aren't. SQL is not relational.
No one does. Even universities tend to teach SQL instead of the relational model.
You can use Oracle as a back-end for Dataphor Alphora, and thus have a truly relational application without endangering your data.
SQL not being relational, the only apps using relational databases nowadays are the ones based on either QUEL (are there any yet?), IBM BS12 (probably none?) and Dataphor Alphora (those by SoftWise, and some few inhouse ones up to now).
All the cases you mention are specific failures of SQL, not of the relational model.
You are assuming they have no historical knowledge about how the market came to be like it is now.
In fact Hugh Darwen is a current, and EF Codd and Chris J Date are former, employee(s) of IBM, involved in the creation (Codd), refinement (Codd, Date, McGoveran & Darwen) and publicising (Date, Darwen & Pascal) of the relational model and engines.
There are at least three implementations of a relational system: QUEL (as in old Ingres), BS12 (an IBM retired product by Darwen, that IBM didn't push because internal politics favoured SQL as a part of the failed F/S project) and Dataphor Alphora (a .Net translation layer over SQL).
The reason almost everyone uses SQL is herd instincts: SQL is popular, is backed by the database bullies IBM, Oracle (sorta), MS (sorta) & Sybase, and everyone will stick to that no matter what just because everyone else does. Kinda like MS-W32 vs POSIX, or procedural vs functional, or imperative vs declarative.
Not quite. SQL adds many arbitrary restrictions to the relational model, and thus fails to implement any significant data independence capabilities. So you are quite limited on how to store SQL data, and on changing the physical schema without changing the logical and user ones.
That is actually a bad example. Not only SQL itself prevents real data independence, if one mixed a relational language (that SQL is not) to any non-relational language to access a particular database, one looses the relational data independence because the non-relational access will have assumptions on the database physical schema and access plans.
Perhaps one would be able to present a stable user schema to the non-relational parts of the application, but even then performance would suffer mightly because of access path assumptions.
Basically because of their personal background. They have been used to big organisations, like IBM, its direct competitors and users, and standards bodies that produce books and really expensive documents.
Moreover, Chris J Date is not rich, and his living comes basically from his books. None of them are systems programmers.
Now Hugh Darwen has created The Third Manifesto, the site
, precisely to give people what you just asked.The book itself had precisely the same objective, just that it was meant to a different world. They are still trying to grok free software and the Net as related to it.
First, you inspire yourself in IBM BS12, which was a good realisation of the relational model, but an early one and only an implementation anyway. The model have developed a lot in the last 20 years, and his should base his work on the fully developed version of the general idea, not on a specific realisation of it. BTW, I guess you have no other contact with BS12 than that page, so even what you can get from BS12 is very limited.
Second, xBase is really no good neither as a language nor as a database interface. Influence from it should be qualified as contamination, not information.
Third, you still use SQL terminology, and it seems that you never grasped the relational concepts from which SQL decayed in the first place.
OK, so let us see.
They presented sets of (1) Proscriptions, (2) Prescriptions, (3) Strong Recommendations for a valid relational database D. Moreover they have made it clear that anything abiding by (1) and (2) would qualify as a D.
Moreover, they produced an example D, named Tutorial. Their website includes a LARL Tutorial D grammar, besides links to tentative implementations, at least one of which is useable.
There are no patents.
So what else more you need for openness of a language?
Well, if you want working, free source code... be welcome to producing it!
Actually that is not true.
No one of commercial consequence ever heard Codd, only IBM BS12 and QUEL people; now Alphora too. IBM itself decided on SQL, which Codd decidedly disavowed and tried to reform.
It is just curiosity, because your writing gives a hint to your thought being conditioned by xBase and SQL, but mainly SQL. You do not seem to have read anything seriously relational.
Why are you so violent?
Yes, but what if that is true?
Quite independently from Christianism, modern philosophers have reached the same conclusion. The result was nihilism and the death of Western High Culture.
Similar was the conclusion of the Western mass culture, and the result is hedonism, AKA practical materialism.
Buddha reached the same conclusion, and the result is the only atheistic, non-secular religion in the world.
In fact, that life is a chore seems to be the consensus of most people in all cultures and ages who actually had a real life.
I assume you are either young, or rich, or superficial, or most probably all three.
And before you protest poverty, if you have access to the Net you are rich compared to most of the population currently living in planet Earth.
Certainly not. But see, you are talking in the plural: experiences. Christianism never denied one could have meaningful experiences, or that one could do good things, or whatever isolated acts or phenomena.
The real thing is to have a meaningful life. And this is not in man to have, but in God to give.
As for the value in life as in respect for others, it stands to reason that if man is the sole measure of man, he can do whatever he wants provided he takes the consequences. It is only if there is a God that Absolutes come into play.
Guess what, they do not want to promote a new language standard. They want to promote relational systems.
If you take the pains to read the book, you will see Tutorial D is but a sample of what a sane relational language would be. It is by no means complete, nor intended to be an standard. The idea is that other people will implement it or something like it, and that is what Alphora for an example did: D4 has nothing to do with Tutorial D apart from conforming to The Third Manifesto. More precisely, Tutorial D follows the COBOL-like IBM tradition of Alpha, QUEL and SQL while D4 is Pascal-like.
Moreover, if you take the pains to do your homework and explore the Web you will see that even the authors themselves publish a Tutorial D grammar online, and several tentative implementation proposals besides.
So good learning!
BTW, what is your background apart from xBase?
Yet you can glean much from what is online.
You have no libraries, no employer?
Some libraries accept suggestions, and I am actually having my employer buy literature such as this.
About your work, Tablizer, it needs work... you still have to fully understand the relational model, and do away with SQL and navigational concepts. Much of what you say in your articles is simply a less clear form of relational algebra.
The Third Manifesto.
No, it simply violates it.
No, it does not. Prolog is about relationships, not relations. It is nearly worthless as a database sublanguage, but useful for some AI-related stuff.
As for the DBMS part, yes, Pick was a DBMS-based OS. But not for the relational part, because Picke was never relational, and any non-relational system is so limited to really not be much of an advantage anyway.
SQL is not relational, the latest versions of the related standard do not even use the word relational or the concepts of the relational model.
By violating principles, adding arbitrary restrictions and being too complex SQL robs us of simplicity, power and speed the relational model is capable of delivering.
This is a big issue. I recomment you read whatever you can get your hands on from Chris J Date, Hugh Darwen, Fabian Pascal, David McGoveran and E F "Ted" Codd.
Pick was never relational.
We are talking different levels. Pointers, C and the like are system programming. The relational model is for applications programming. Perhaps Lisp or something the like could bridge these levels, but in principle they are different. And even C could use relational storage.
SQL is not good enough, because it subtract features, add arbitrary restrictions and is not as simple and powerful as the relational model for database management.
What we really need is a really relational, full DBMS (with sane defaults) as the fundamental storage component of an OS.
OK, but step outside of your borders and you're effectively mute.
Subsidising is always done in hope of recoupling it later. So if costs are higher, tariffs will have to be higher too sooner or later.
That's sad...
Anyway, it will only be an advantage if 3G flies.
A point: I guess W-CDMA isn't an international standard as GSM is?
That is not an option. GSM will always be there for (lots of) people who wanna but talk.
Agreed, and that was my point.
Not without GSM, AFAIU.
CDMA is already present in the US, some of Latin America and some of the Far East. Yet handsets are routinely more expensive, late and with less options than the comparable GSM ones. The exception seems to be some PalmOS phones such as the Kyocera ones.
One reason: Qualcom patent royalties. Another: absence of universal standard hinders economies of scale.
Agreed, but this has nothing to do with GSM vs CDMA.
I understand this is just a regulatory aberration specific to braindamaged Indian policy hostile to GSM, that is about to change anyway?
Again, this has nothing to do with CDMA vs GSM AFAIK.
Yes, but again this is just a dumb regulatory issue that should go away?
Unless you are meaning that even the GSM investments have hardly paid off yet. But this is true all over the world, and I can hardly see how a new operator, fighting uphill against already entrenched ones, has a better chance of breaking even and providing investors with some ROI.
This is not an excuse, it is true. Only big executive managers are making money, not the investors for sure. And this reminds me of another question: is there, or will there be, any market for GSM at all? It might be nice, but we would need at least better and cheaper Palm OS, GNU/Linux and Java phones, and even then I do not see it as a given.
We are not talking in the same level here.
What you say is valid for a user interface. I am interested in the conceptual level. Both are right in their own spheres, but no user interface can fix a flawed concept.
Moreover, fixing flawed concepts with user interfaces leads to feature creeping and bloat. As can be seen with SQL and associated tools.
Taking a hint from Fabian Pascal, none of these are sane. Either they do not qualify as general data models, or they get important characteristics wrong.
Try comparing any of them with the relational model. Try naming advantages. You cannot, because there are not any.
People who advocate alternative so-called models generally never understood the relational model in the first place, and usually did not even understand what a data model is.
Sorry if you feel insulted, but it is my way of trying to make you see you need to educate yourself.
But that the market decides is usually unfortunate. Just see LISP vs C, IBM vs many others (in mainframe era), MS vs open systems, NeWS vs X, SQL vs relational.
You seem to be carefully avoiding the point that SQL is not relational anymore. From the start it was only a contrafaction of the relational model, adding lots of complexity and arbitrary restrictions. And now, just when it was finally acquiring relational completeness, it has ditched the relational model completely, not even using relational concepts, much less terminology, in the standards documents.
That proves again you do not understand the identity and the power of the relational model. People use non-relational databases, obviously, because SQL itself is not relational. But people use aberrations like OODBs and the such because they do not understand that what they are looking for beyond SQL can be better found, and much simpler too, in the relational model.
OK, but a feat?
And even if it sells, is it to the best interest of users and investors? I mean, it still could go wrong because it is not standard and because it commands high royalties to Qualcom. Users are blocked from roaming, have to pay more for handsets, and cannot use them in other networks and countries if they move or simply decide to change operators. Investors could see their assets devaluated if GSM 3G succeeds and leave CDMA 3G as a niche, especially if GSM operator license fees are lowered by governments, as it would be fair to do.
Feat?!?
At least I hope it's not a waste of capitals...
Not necessarily. Turing completeness is required basically for the definition of operators on new types. I agree that modern RDBMSs should have this.
You are thinking programming. Yes, you can program anything. But if you don't comply with the relational model, you get no performance improvements, no ease of use, no data independence. Please study the relational model, you will see what I mean.
Both. There are people implementing it, I pointed to three existing implementations, one of them modern. If you cared to visit the URL I pointed you too, you would see other projects.
And even if these implementations were and still are overshadowed in the market by SQL, whatever qualities SQL still have were inherited from its imperfect foundations on the relational model. Too bad marketroids got in the way.
Man, where do you live? The moon? You do not know what you are talking about. Ever heard of Dijkstra's contributions, just for an instance? Not to mention that yourself just used Turing as a model to evaluate a language...
Also, it is clear you don't realise the power of the relational model. Please do your reading. This is not only programming. It is about providing a useful, agreed-upon, powerful, logical, abstract data model.
For example?
Huh? And what better appeared since the 60s? Do you have a pointer to prove your muddling up allegations?
It is crystal clear you never read them properly if at all. Either that or your thought is too muddled by OO to be able to analyse the issues at hand.