Chris Date (born 1941) is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant, specializing in
relational database theory.
Biography
Chris Date attended
High Wycombe Royal Grammar School (U.K.) from 1951 to 1958 and received his
BA in
Mathematics from
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
(U.K.) in 1962. He entered the computer business as a mathematical programmer at
Leo Computers Ltd. (London), where he quickly moved into education and training. In 1966, he earned his master's degree at Cambridge, and, in 1967, he joined
IBM Hursley (UK) as a
computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...
instructor. Between 1969 and 1974, he was a principal instructor in IBM's European education program.
While working at
IBM he was involved in technical planning and design for the IBM products
SQL/DS and
DB2.
He was also involved with
Edgar F. Codd
Edgar Frank "Ted" Codd (19 August 1923 – 18 April 2003) was an English computer scientist who, while working for IBM, invented the relational model for database management, the theoretical basis for relational databases and relational databa ...
’s
relational model for database management.
He left IBM in 1983 and has written extensively of the relational model, in association with
Hugh Darwen
Hugh Darwen is a computer scientist who was an employee of IBM United Kingdom from 1967. to 2004, and has been involved in the development of the relational model.
Work
From 1978 to 1982 he was a chief architect on Business System 12, a dat ...
.
As of 2007 his book ''An Introduction to Database Systems'', currently in its 8th edition, has sold well over 700,000 copies
not counting translations, and is used by several hundred colleges and universities worldwide.
He is also the author of many other books on
data management, most notably ''Databases, Types, and the Relational Model'', subtitled and commonly referred to as ''The Third Manifesto'', currently in its third edition (note that earlier editions were titled differently, but maintained the same subtitle), a proposal for the future direction of
DBMS
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
s.
Works
Chris Date is the author of several books, including:
* ''An Introduction to Database Systems'', 2004,
* ''A Guide to the SQL standard, 4th ed.'', Addison Wesley, USA 1997,
* ''Databases, Types, and the Relational Model, The Third Manifesto'' (with
Hugh Darwen
Hugh Darwen is a computer scientist who was an employee of IBM United Kingdom from 1967. to 2004, and has been involved in the development of the relational model.
Work
From 1978 to 1982 he was a chief architect on Business System 12, a dat ...
), 2007,
* ''Temporal Data & the Relational Model'', 2003,
* ''Database in Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners'', 2005,
* Several volumes of ''Relational Database Writings'': , , , .
* ''What Not How: The Business Rules Approach to Application Development'', 2000,
* ''The Database Relational Model: A Retrospective Review and Analysis'', 2001,
* ''SQL and Relational Theory, 2nd Edition: How to Write Accurate SQL Code'', 2011, .
In recent years he has published articles with
Fabian Pascal at Database Debunkings.
See also
*
Nikos Lorentzos
*
David McGoveran
*
Fabian Pascal
*
Lex de Haan
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Date, Christopher
IBM employees
Database researchers
1941 births
Living people
People from Watford
People educated at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe