The Rise of Oracle, SQL and the Relational Database

Links:
- The Asianometry Newsletter: www.asianometry.com
- Patreon: / asianometry
- Threads: www.threads.net/@asianometry
- Twitter: / asianometry

[@jaystannard]

A SQL query walks into a bar, he sees two tables and joins them

[@feraudyh]

Then he has a row with the owner.

[@feraudyh]

The owner only authorizes select clients

[@slowdownex]

That was pretty good 😂 I haven't heard that one

[@ValidatingUsername]

@@feraudyhWhen the bouncers list is updated he seats the selected guests at the joined tables where their ID matched their nametags 😂

[@vinterskugge907]

... but alas, it was a full join. Thus, the glasses from those two tables duplicated and then duplicated again. And again. Soon, the glasses were filling the entire bar, from floor to ceiling. A union guy came and cleaned up, then declared "No more joins! If you want stuff from different tables, only unions are allowed to do that from now on."

[@ineptengineer]

As a daily user of sql databases, i really enjoy hearing the history

[@glass00jdofiwbskdg]

Aren't we all daily users of SQL databases? Hahaha

[@kyriosity-at-github]

@@glass00jdofiwbskdg there're wild tribes in Amazonia who ain't.

[@eigentensor]

6:30 lmao at the Boeing picture :)

[@MotokoKaiousei]

Maybe they found the Bolts in the Database? 🤔

[@kaminakaminakaminakamina]

I just paused the video to come comment the same thing! 🤣

[@CraftMine1000]

@@MotokoKaiousei they're actually probably in there, how it got out of sync with the real world is a different question though :P

[@dine9093]

Isn't that their new logo??

[@MrHav1k]

That had me rolling 🤣🤣

[@nezbrun872]

Another great SQL history video: I have a 35 year career in SQL, and again, I was unaware of much of this history detail. And you managed to discuss Codd without going into his Rules, for which you are to be congratulated! I worked briefly at the Microsoft campus shortly after SQL Server 2000 was released, as as a customer, we were struggling to get an enterprise system ported from the earlier Sybase-based database engine code that still resided in SQL Server 6.5 into 2000, and performance was proving a big problem: the optimiser had been significantly re-written since Microsoft had forked the database engine following their split from Sybase. While I was there, I was told a story of what happened when Microsoft and Sybase parted ways. There was an agreement that upon termination of their cooperation agreement, all source code would be shared between them at that point. As you can imagine, Microsoft had done a lot of development separately. So when Microsoft sent Sybase all their final source code,, they stripped out all of the white space and mangled all the identifier names. I've never looked upon Microsoft in the same way since.

[@Theoryofcatsndogs]

That sounds like what will Bill do.

[@CaptainDangeax]

I pity you for working on MS databases. It was always painful to me, and I'm a happy Linux engineer now

[@thomasgilson6206]

I remember an interview with Ted Codd in an 80's computer magazine where he made the interviewer sign an agreement that included the stipulation to refrain from calling him a "guru". Now I can't think of Codd or even SQL without that word "guru" popping into my head. Streisand effect.

[@thiruvetti]

Wierd from Codd. Do u know why he put that condition to avoid calling him Guru?

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

Ellison, Gates -- you've outdone yourself in the pictures you chose for them. Nice job!

[@TheHilariousGoldenChariot]

3 months ago???

[@the_expidition427]

@@TheHilariousGoldenChariot Patreon?

[@TEDodd]

​When he says early access he really means early.@@TheHilariousGoldenChariot

[@rickardmatt1]

Ellison looks so yass. Looking forward to Oracle 24.0.yass

[@1pierosangiorgio]

My father was COO of ASK/Ingress in the very early 90's. while I joined Oracle in 1993... exciting years.

[@theronwolf3296]

The last 25 years of my work life before retirement were spent in SQL. Really liked working with it, especially the ability for ad hoc queries when unexpected information is needed. Periodically management would need some very specific information, and SQL was a great tool for that task.

[@TheMarkRich]

"Porting like drunk rabbits". A phrase I must use more often.

[@simonschneider5913]

we could have so much more great software if only we had those rabbits. makes you wonder whether sticking a CS-degree on everyone with a pulse was such great idea.

[@williamlyerly3114]

Would have tried replicating instead of porting, but porting is so IT related.

[@melanieblizard]

I have to say the amount of effort you put into the script and production is excellent. Having worked at Logica and used databases i really enjoyed this. These subjects are fascinating because although they are considered obscure they are literally world changing. Thank you.

[@alexhubble]

A teaser finish (a bloody teaser!) about the history of databases.... and I am hooked.

[@carmencrincoli]

RIP Jim Gray. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak multiple times in my career at Microsoft before he was lost at sea. His disappearance sent shockwaves through the company. He was such a bright light in a company full of brilliant people.

[@pbernstein80]

Loved the slide projector joke. I laughed heartily 👍

[@fensoxx]

Break it down for us plebes please 🤤

[@eddievhfan1984]

@@fensoxx While Oracle was reasonably effective at its job as a database, its efficiency and stability didn't quite live up to the hype in sales presentations-it worked amazingly on the projector slide deck (the presentation materials), but customers using the tech in the real world didn't get the performance they were hoping for.

[@thomaseckert5691]

Keep making these great videos! I'm loving the format and the well-researched content!

[@MrHav1k]

This was so informative Asianometry. Fills in a lot of context behind things I've wondered about for a while. Thanks!

[@robinbinder8658]

".... and boeing [shows missing door plug] "... aw hell that was savage

[@galen__]

Really enjoying this multi-part look into the history of SQL and databases in general 👍

[@caleballen4721]

Incredibly well done history. I am developing a query system (not relational, but somewhat related) and I find this extremely informative and useful. Thank you!

[@dermick]

If you do it right, you might become the next Larry Ellison!

[@efkastner]

6:36 It’s slides like these that keep me coming back

[@larahporter8123]

Hey your videos are really great, and I'm not even into SW stuff, I am an accountant that had to learn SQL when working in cost. But your videos are rich in history and I love history in all its forms.

[@RobCoops]

This is like a trip down memory lane, im to young to have known any of these products from their initial stages but I have literally had the "pleasure" (millage may vary) to work with every one of the databases mentioned in this video. It's really interesting to hear how all these sometimes nightmarish products are related. Love the video's they are a must watch pretty much regardless of the topic being covered they are always very well researched and informative, truly a joy to watch. Though some like this one make me fee very old 🙂 (I am not all that old just yet, just had the "good fortune" of working for a large enterprise that had swallowed up a little over 200 of its smaller competitors within less than a decade. That is how I got to first consolidate all the different companies systems into a few central data centers to then start and consolidating the different business applications covering the same processes into a single system either existing or newly build. Being part of that work results in you working with pretty much every DB under the sun as the logistics industry which was where this organization made its money is not known for their progressive IT procurement policies.

[@fredinit]

16:00 Date's book is what my university used for the undergrad database class in the late 80's early 90's. I still have my copy. We used DB/2 on DOS-based PCs, and Date's book. This combination started to show the idiosyncratic differences between the different SQL dialects. Over her career, my wife has used Sybase, Ingress, SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, and DB/2.

[@kondybas]

Seventh edition dedicated to the 25-th anniversary of the first edition is right on my table now :) That's why I've moved to DBA after 20 years in IT - it is a most stable and conservative branch of the CS.

[@randomuseryt5143]

wrangling and cleaning a 60GB database, the "VACUUM;" command made me laugh

[@atheistbushman]

I have so much work to do but you keep seducing me with well researched videos on topics I should not be binge watching!

[@bluesquare23]

Yes! This is exactly the video I was waiting for and you did not disappoint!

[@Arock-pu9zv]

I've watched a few of your videos. I have zero programming ability, but the history is fascinating. Looking forward to the future

[@rwang5688]

Love it - Oracle database ran best on PowerPoint and slide projectors 🤣

[@Ultimatebubs]

In other words, it never ran as well as Oracle promised it would in the sales presentations. Yeah... that sounds about right.

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

Yep, runs best in a sales pitch.

[@shawnnoyes4620]

Eventually, the database became rock solid. Version 5 was a good release.

[@arpanmukherjee4625]

The time I used Oracle, 9i to 11g, it was rock solid

[@user-nt1nu4hd4b]

Oracle was, and still has more bugs than Starship Troopers. It was an absolute nightmare.

[@frankchan4272]

Sybase used be in Emeryville before they moved to Dublin. I used to work at Oracle & Ed Oates office above my office & unfortunately I get his mail & he will get mine so I knew pretty well. He really didn’t need to work but wanted to do something.

[@PhillipHilton]

Jon, you are fantastic. Thankyou for being the 'no nonsense historian' of our sector.

[@GungaLaGunga]

Your videos are superb. I thoroughly enjoy this channel. Excellent. Thank you.

[@Earth_Rim_Roamer]

Cool! I'm watching at the moment. I hope I can do something useful one day like these guys. Thanks for sharing this story.

[@jaimeortega4940]

Takes me back to my old days in Austin, Tx working at a software development company. At that time the company had made some pretty neat, small and fast software/browser-based emulators for the VAX, SYS 360, Unix/Linux and IBM 5250 Mini - all of them really including Amdahl and others from Europe. That was a lot of fun and I got to play with some of those mainframes and mini databases. They were remarkably fast and stable. It is amazing to me that SQL is still used to this day. A testament to its well thought out design. Who knows what the next innovation generation will bring? Perhaps something akin to using Quantum or other alternative systems with the only way I can put it, already connected so in a weird way "instant global connectivity and access to the data." Always enjoy your nostalgic content!

[@JakobsenTom]

Really like this story. Feels like I have been part. I started as DBA on mainframe network database - then was sysadmin on Unix with first version informix growing with two phase commit and SQL. I remember Stonebraker came to Informix . Anyway great memories - today we came so far with technology and this knowledge is as important as ever ❤

[@brookrichardson1373]

I worked on a product that used Sybase for the backend in the mid 2000's and quite enjoyed it. It was straightforward to setup and get running.

[@comed1an]

I subscribed a minute into the video. never done that before. love the channel name too lol.

[@non-human3072]

Hey bro, Awesome videos, I look forward to seeing them but I'm not sure what Google (KZbin) is playing at but I just had to resubscribe to your channel.

[@lxndr3299]

Slide Projector! What a knee slapper! You have a great sense of humor.

[@mackal]

Can we do a history of the current major open source SQL software? (mysql, mariadb, postgresql, etc)

[@Armadurapersonal]

i think that would fit for a part 3 or part 4 video on sql databases.

[@EduardoEscarez]

@@Armadurapersonal I agree, those RDBMS started around the end of the nineties, so there still a lot to cover in next videos.

[@vulpo]

And finally an episode on the challenges to relational databases by the No-SQL upstarts and where we are today.

[@kondybas]

@@vulpo Besides the CAP, noSQLs are popular mostly because the declarative approach of SQL is not very clear for coders stuck with imperative languages... Queries they write are terrible.

[@vulpo]

@@kondybas Yes, this is why Object-Relational Mapping tools like Hibernate (for Java) became popular [yuck!]. However some might prefer a simpler, lighter, and more transparent approach such as with Apache DbUtils that allows the programmer to have complete control and understanding of their data and SQL queries.

[@DrewNorthup]

"The company now known as Oracle has a chaotic history." Understatement, subtle like a brick.

[@HanCurunyr]

as a DBA in SQL Server, that video is amazing, I also had the pleasure of briefly work with the IBM verson of Informix, in the Avaya CMS database, kinda different dialect of SQL, but pretty easy to use

[@kellymoses8566]

My database class about data normalization was one of the hardest classes.

[@todd.mitchell]

That course has paid off handsomely for me. Third normal form is a mindset.

[@AerialWaviator]

The SEQUEL paper at 2:11 was published 50 years ago this week. A nice relational coincidence.

[@wokeclub1844]

3:24 that pronunciation of Stonebraker got me rollin for days ngl

[@P4RK3R1Z3D]

I'm glad you're continuing with the history of SQL.

[@p07a]

This is so arcane one day you might start doing history of containers and load balancers. Good job!

[@EannaButler]

Love the video, always love you channel, you're just brilliant! Only thing - it's not "seequel" - albeit it's original name - it's "SQL"...

[@EannaButler]

17:00 - Wait - you lived in Dublin?! 21:40 - "...like drunk rabbits, ..." - huh? 🙂

[@w4439]

Fun fact - only 2 people maintain the tz timezone database that virtually every operating system queries to configure geos

[@ah244895]

As a DBA, across DBASE, Oracle, IBM AS/400, I loved this video. Will probably watch it many times....

[@EduardoEscarez]

Really a great continuation of the previous video, and hoping for a good ending for this miniseries.

[@ronalerquinigoagurto555]

So important a channel explains history of technology

[@wolcek]

Can you send this movie, with the ACID part highlighted, to British Post Office and Fujitsu?

[@DrewNorthup]

Only if it comes with a side of mushrooms.

[@wolcek]

@@DrewNorthup are you trying to say they're not delusional enough?

[@DrewNorthup]

@@wolcek It might open their minds…

[@wolcek]

@@DrewNorthup assuming there is anything to open.

[@MotokoKaiousei]

Nice Video. Thanks!

[@allanlees299]

It would have been worth going into much closer detail about Oracle's early days. Just like IBM, the VC community believed software existed as a give-away used to sell hardware, and nearly everyone turned Ellision down when he tried to raise VC funding. When he finally succeeded, he got the brainless oaf Don Valentine on his Board, and Valentine was famously addicted to his notion "you can never fire a startup CEO too fast" - which led Sequoia to destroy dozens of potentially world-beating companies early in their lifecycle. Somehow Ellison managed to avoid Valentine's destructive impulses long enough to reach the IPO. Then, at the $1 billion revenue mark, Oracle nearly detonated because of Ellision's very poor financial management. Plus, Ellision played some very dubious games with the stock, resulting in his co-founders becoming nowhere near as incredibly rich as he himself did. It's an interesting tale and shows that there's a lot more to success than technology and timing.

[@venkateshjagadeeshwara6269]

Oracle was early implementers of Row level locking and that was one of the major trumpcard besides being available on all major systems

[@tndigi1233]

Best jokes ever - so far.. you had me laugh out loudly at least three times. What an achievement for a monday morning

[@SilviasBrainery]

Yes we women do love databases!!!

[@rafaelgadret]

great video! thanks!

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

Brooks was the 360 project manager, not the designer of it, as far as I remember.

[@SomeGuyInSandy]

Brother, you sure know how to tell a story. Nice video!

[@ah244895]

Might be my favorite of your videos.....

[@coraltown1]

How a database maintains 'coherency' (data integrity) would be its own interesting topic. I imagine some form of 'lock' protocol is involved.

[@Zuranthus]

the many blunders of IBM and Xerox are legendary

[@OldieBugger]

I have used every kind of databases in my career of computing. Every. The relational DB is by far the easiest to write software for, but also slowest of them all. Back in the day when the computers and their drives were veeeery slow, other types of databases were necessary. Today we can work with relational databases.

[@OldieBugger]

I never used SQL because the "relational" databases I was using was keyed with the realtime stamps and those were (practically) never in sync. Timestamps as double-precision real numbers, you have to interpolate something to match them, usually I interpolated the vessel position as we knew it travelled more or less in a straight line.

[@stang9806]

Also cloud computing has led to the rise of more non relational databases as well

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@OldieBuggerGeoInformation is also a problem for relational databases. GoogleMaps was one of the first apps to go to noSQL .

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@stang9806how? AWS offers RDS. All my contacts with noSQL were on premises.

[@snuscaboose1942]

With the right hardware, RDBMSs out pace other systems in high concurrency ACID compliant transaction processing, such as core banking, share trading, gaming (horses), lotteries etc... They are also great for CRMs.

[@iraqigeek8363]

C.J. Date's book is how we learned databases in uni! I owe a big chunk of my career to what I learned from that book.

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

That projector joke is pretty good.

[@toyotagaz]

The timing couldn't have been perfect I just started my Database course at uni on the same day of upload 😅

[@sd_pjwal]

I remember reading long ago that Sybase would not sell to Microsoft, so Microsoft instead hired all of their top talent. An act that kicked off the popularity of non-poaching clauses between companies and non-competes in employment contracts. We're seeing that come full circle as more and more rulings and legislation (especially in CA) are dismantling these practices.

[@DJRanoia]

The mean girls quote was a nice tough haha

[@gus473]

20:59 Alex. Brown & Sons! Have to say I do miss the niche bankers like them, H&Q, even Adams, Harkness & Hill. At the time the financial side was more relational too (for better or worse). Seems less so now.

[@bebokRZly]

Episode ends like some TV series :D cliff hanger! I want more! :)

[@simonschneider5913]

always so interesting to see how defence-money gets things going. lots of dots to connect between tech and the darker side of gorvernment.

[@louwrentius]

This is true for the existence of Silicon Valley 😢 and obviously World War II

[@simonschneider5913]

@@louwrentius and for musk and zuck as well..and google, and bezos of course..all seed-funded by the usual suspects..and getting big fat contracts for DOD and the dozens of other services...

[@rinelsays9130]

I never thought I would have to type by hand into the URL bar to access YT videos. LOL

[@tjeanneret]

I remembre building an early version of Oracle on a Taiwanese AT-class compatible PC, back in the 80... It tooked some 20 floppy disks, at least ! But the product was running, complete. All on a 640KBytes RAM (I had to check !) machine. Waouh !

[@bendafyddgillard]

interesting how dedicated Oracle were (at the start anyway) to being compatible with Big Blue. That seems like a canny choice for an underdog. Double edged sword though if you accidentally become the industry leader.

[@ronaryel6445]

I read CJ Date's books when I learned SQL at UCLA. I used Microsoft SQL later at Massachusetts General Hospital to build a research registry for the neonatal ICU.

[@snuscaboose1942]

You didn't use MUMPS (Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System) or it's diabolical derivative, M?

[@ronaryel6445]

@@snuscaboose1942 No. HTML for the user interface, Cold Fusion 1.5 for the interface generator, and Microsoft SQL for the database itself. I could have used Javascript to make the menu mask prettier, but artistry is not one of my strengths.

[@Jisamaniac]

That Boeing picture was gangster

[@CaptainDangeax]

Just waiting for episode 2, about the clash, sql everywhere and smaller players like mysql postgres and nosql models

[@joezeigler1064]

The history of scientific & mathematical advances yields an understanding of today and how we got here. Thank you for your educational efforts.

[@ncastellani]

was that lighthouse a reference to SHIELDs lighthouse at season 6?

[@hayer70]

Will you be doing a video on Digital or DEC?

[@qwertyazerty2137]

Shoutout to Sybase ASE dba!

[@roc7880]

please do a course on Coursera or Patreon on anything you find interesting, especially on the actual history of technology, I would pay for it. alternatively, write a book.

[@ViniciusSoaresBatista]

Can’t wait for the next one.

[@mattmurray764]

Some might call the next one a SQL

[@MrAdhito]

6:30 LMAOO, Jon from now on you better sleep with one eye open 🤣

[@LatitudeSky]

Feel so old. Many moons ago, I had to deal with dBase on occasion. Still remember quit with 1 being the solution for everything in that company.

[@valueinvestornetnet]

Love it!!

[@AntneeUK]

I was confused by the image of the Sybase office. Didn't look anything like Dublin. Then I Googled it and realised it was Dublin in California, not Ireland! 😂

[@raylopez99]

Didn't Asianometry already do SQL a few weeks ago? For those SELECT few who read this, I say: AS FROM WHERE Asianometry got the idea to do another video on SQL, I'm not HAVING it. AND BETWEEN you and me, Asiometry, you can DELETE this post. But I LIKE and subscribe to your channel.

[@boredandagitated]

Informix’s Informer, is that what Snow was singing about

[@Klatchan]

Yo I live in Maine, I should look into that shit.

[@davetelekom443]

Proper credit to Ellison who went full in his vision

[@davidfrischknecht8261]

Of course you used the picture of the plane with the blown-out door plug for Boeing.

[@eoghancronin2736]

I still use IMS today!

[@user-ik5dp6qi9y]

Asianometry coul you make a video about a company or economic sector of mexico? There is not as good of economic evolution analisis as yours out there.

[@TheBlackBuddha17]

WE LOVE YOU ASIANOMETRY!!!!!YOURE THE BEST

[@rich_in_paradise]

Worth mentioning C.J.Date's career-long cruisade against SQL as not being a true implementation of Codd's relational theory.

[@dalar2]

Love these database docs. What amazes me is how much of RDBMS functionality still sits on the same bedrock from decades ago. The young hipster "NoSQL" crowd has also finally caved in and realised RDBMS still matter... but of course they are not interested in established RDBMS, they must create there own... cue "New SQL" - look it up 🤣🤣

[@cerad7304]

Sort of hoping that dBase III would have gotten a mention. It had tables.

[@cancatcannothaz]

6:30 noice, depection of Boeing 👏🏿

[@shjonescrk]

The great thing about SQL is that it is really easy to learn. The bad thing about SQL is that it is really easy to learn.