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Edgar F. Codd

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Edgar F. Codd
Born
Edgar Frank Codd

(1923-08-19) 19 August 1923 (age 103)
Fortuneswell, Dorset, England
Died18 April 2003(2003-04-18) (aged 79)
Aventura, Florida, United States
OccupationComputer scientist
Years active1948–2003
Known forInventing the relational model of database management

Edgar Frank "Ted" Codd (19 August 1923 – 18 April 2003) was a British computer scientist renowned for inventing the relational model of database management during his tenure at IBM. This innovation laid the groundwork for relational databases and relational database management systems.[1][2]

Biography

Codd was born in Fortuneswell, Dorset, England, and pursued studies in mathematics and chemistry at Exeter College, Oxford. Following his service as a pilot with the RAF Coastal Command in World War II, he began working at IBM in New York in 1948 as a mathematical programmer.[3] His early contributions included work on the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) and the IBM 701 and 702 computer systems.

In 1953, he moved to Ottawa, Canada, before returning to the United States in 1957 to continue his career at IBM. Between 1961 and 1965, Codd completed a doctorate in computer science at the University of Michigan. By 1967, he was employed at IBM’s San Jose Research Laboratory, where he stayed through the 1980s and was honored as an IBM Fellow in 1976.[4]

Codd was awarded the esteemed Turing Award in 1981 for his foundational work on database management systems and was later named an ACM Fellow in 1994.[4][5]

He died of heart failure at his residence in Florida in 2003 at the age of 79.[6]

Work

Under the guidance of John Henry Holland, Codd earned his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1965. His dissertation focused on self-replication within cellular automata, expanding on von Neumann’s research by proving that eight states were sufficient for universal computation and construction. A self-replicating computer based on his design was not realized until 2010.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Codd formulated his concepts regarding data organization, culminating in the publication of "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks" in 1970, preceded by an internal IBM report a year earlier. Initially, IBM hesitated to embrace his relational model, favoring revenue from its hierarchical IMS/DB system. However, after Codd demonstrated its advantages to IBM clients who demanded its adoption, IBM initiated the System R project under its Future Systems program. This effort was assigned to developers unfamiliar with Codd’s principles and working separately from him. The team developed SEQUEL, a language superior to prior systems but not fully relational. SEQUEL was later replicated by Larry Ellison in his Oracle Database, which entered the market before IBM’s SQL/DS; trademark conflicts led to SEQUEL being renamed SQL.

Codd persisted in enhancing the relational model, frequently partnering with Christopher J. Date. The well-known database normalization form, Boyce–Codd normal form, bears his name. His pioneering work also introduced Codd's theorem, which establishes equivalence between the expressive capabilities of relational algebra and relational calculus.

As relational databases gained traction during the early 1980s, Codd actively criticized vendors who misapplied the term "relational" by merely adding superficial features to existing legacy systems. He published his influential set of criteria known as 12 rules, which define what constitutes a genuine relational database. Encountering growing challenges at IBM, he eventually departed to establish a consulting firm alongside Chris Date and others.

Codd is credited with coining Online analytical processing (OLAP) and formulated the "twelve laws of online analytical processing." Nevertheless, controversy emerged when it became known that this work was sponsored by Arbor Software, presenting a conflict of interest that led to its retraction by Computerworld.

To honor his significant contributions to database technology, the SIGMOD conference renamed its premier award as the SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award in 2004.

Publications

  • Codd, Edgar Frank (1968). Cellular Automata. Academic Press.
  • Codd, Edgar Frank (1970). "Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages". In Database Systems, pages 65–98.
  • Codd, Edgar Frank (1981). "1981 Turing Award Lecture – Relational Database: A Practical Foundation for Productivity". Published in Communications of the ACM, volume 25, issue 2, pages 109–117.
  • Codd, Edgar Frank (1990). The Relational Model for Database Management, Second Edition. Addison Wesley Publishing.
  • Codd, Edgar Frank; Codd, S. B.; Salley, C. T. (1993). "Providing OLAP to User-Analysts: An IT Mandate". Hyperion.

See also

Further reading

  • Date, C. J. (2000). The Database Relational Model: A Retrospective Review and Analysis. Addison Wesley Longman.
  • National Academy of Sciences (1999). "Chapter 6: The Rise of Relational Databases" in Funding a Revolution: Government Support for Computing Research. National Academy Press.

External links

  1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named dblp
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named acm
  3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :0
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named ACM Turing
  5. ↑ ACM Fellows
  6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named IBM
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