Re: Proper relational database?

> owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Guyren Howe
> Sent: Saturday, 23 April 2016 4:04 AM
> To: Raymond Brinzer <ray(dot)brinzer(at)gmail(dot)com>
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Proper relational database?
>
> On Apr 22, 2016, at 10:45 , Raymond Brinzer <ray(dot)brinzer(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> The fundamental storage model needs to at least be a bit different. In
> particular, relations can't allow duplicates. You could have nulls (Codd
> proposed two different forms of null IIRC: a single null value and two
> different null values), although they should be more principled than the
mess
> they are in SQL.

Andl has no nulls. I have read Codd's later work, but IMHO the consequences
of multi-valued logic do not justify that conclusion.

The standard storage engines used for SQL can handle tables with no nulls
perfectly well.

> I am no expert on database optimization, but I understand that it is
> significantly easier to do query optimization in a properly relational
> database, as it forms a reasonably simple algebra, which can be optimized
> much as you would optimize evaluation of a numeric expression.

I would venture a guess that advanced query planners already take into
account whether columns have nulls or not. Whatever can be done for a 'pure'
RA can already be done as a special case for SQL, and probably has been.

> Major gains from a proper relational store would be:
>
> - a better language, easier to parse, read and generate. Perhaps multiple
> equivalent query languages;

Check. Andl is that, and I know several others.

> - other storage models (distributed and eventually consistent, say);
> - simpler (in implementation and use);

Not sure whether this is a reasonable consequence.
>
> We may also get some degree of faster and other good things. It also might
be
> implemented in such a way that it can run as a server or more like SQLite.

Andl does that. It provides 3 native servers: Thrift, Web API and REST.

Regards
David M Bennett FACS

Andl - A New Database Language - andl.org