Advances in Database Programming Languages

Assn for Computing Machinery, 1990. — 478 p. — (Acm Press Frontier Series). — ISBN 0201502577, 9780201502572Recent research in database programming languages will, we believe, be of interest not only to the academic community but also to any software development group that is contemplating the use of a new language or database system. Although much further development is needed to achieve an ideal language (and, of course, opinions differ about the nature of this ideal) there is a growing number of commercial products that are intended as database programming languages. Several of the papers may help to provide an understanding of the power of these new systems and how they compare to the traditional multilingual and multisystem approach to database applications.
In September 1987 a meeting was held in Roscoff, France, to bring together a number of researchers and implementors who have a practical interest in database programming. This collection of papers is based on the presentations that were originally given at that meeting. One of the results of this meeting was the emergence of common interests among researchers in several areas of computer science: databases, programming languages, software engineering, and logic programming. While the subject of database programming languages is still in its infancy we hope that this collection conveys these common interests.