PLClub Discussion Group

Relational Algebra's Origins and Modern Relevance

This week’s PL Club will be a bit of a history lesson and a learning experience, as it will be my first time leading a discussion in a research group. This will be to help familiarize both myself and the group with the math-based foundations of databases and the model they use.

I will be presenting a history of E.F. Codd’s relational algebra (used for querying data as in a database), what its contemporary competitor(s) were, why it was chosen as the leading model for databases, and how it evolved over the years. This will be adapted from Codd’s 1970 paper on the subject (linked as homework below) and will add progress forward in time from there. Along the way, I will be tying Codd’s ideas to terminology in formal Algebras and modern programming ideas in databases and programming languages like the Structured Query Language.

Homework: https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~zives/03f/cis550/codd.pdf