1.3. Some Historical Background
This section briefly overviews the evolution of computing languages for information systems and then outlines the historical development of the main kinds of logical data structures used in database systems. We begin with a simple example to illustrate how the level of a language impacts how easy it is to formulate questions.
Table 1.5 summarizes how five generations of computing languages might be used to request a computer to list the name, mass, and moons (if any) of each planet, assuming the information is stored in an astronomical database. The higher the generation, the closer to natural language, and usually the less you have to say. Nowadays nobody uses machine code or assembler to access databases. Most ...
Get Information Modeling and Relational Databases, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
