The Alpha language was the original database language proposed by

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 ...

, the inventor of the

relational database A relational database is a (most commonly digital) database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A system used to maintain relational databases is a relational database management system (RDBMS). Many relatio ...

approach. It was defined in Codd's 1971 paper "A Data Base Sublanguage Founded on the Relational Calculus". Alpha influenced the design of QUEL. It was eventually supplanted by SQL (which is however based on the relational algebra defined by Codd in "Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages"Codd, E.F., "Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages", IBM Research Laboratory, RJ987, 1972.), which IBM developed for its first commercial relational database product.

References

See also