Ted Codd, Father of the Relational Database, dead at 79

Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting
April 22, 2003

Edgar (Ted) Codd, co-founder of the relational database, died last Sunday in Florida, according to the Mercury News:

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/5676110.htm

As we all know. Oracle used the relational mode from Codd and Date to model the Oracle database.

Ted is survived by his wife Sharon Codd (the mother of OLAP), four children and six grandchildren. Sharon Codd is a famous relational theoretician in her own right, and co-authored the 12 rules of OLAP with Ted in 1993.

This was very sad new to those of us who were raised on Codd's rules of normalization. Codd's most famous quote (in my opinion) was when he was asked why he chose the word "normalization" to describe relational database modeling.

Codd was reported to have replied "At the time, Nixon was normalizing relations with China. I figured that if he could normalize relations, then so could I".

Ted Codd may best be remembered for a famous mnemonic on his definition for second-normal-form:

"A relation is in second normal form if the relation depends on the key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd".

Chris Date could not be reached for comment.

We all extend our deepest sympathy to his family and colleagues.

Regards,

    Don Burleson
    www.dba-oracle.com
    www.remote-dba.net