Date: Wed, 07 Jul 93 13:01:30 -0700 From: Rick Snodgrass To: ahn@cbnvma.att.com, ariav@taunivm.tau.ac.il, csj@iesd.auc.dk, elmasri@cse.uta.edu, fabio@deis64.cineca.it, kaefer@informatik.uni-kl.de, rts@cs.arizona.edu Subject: Welcome! Welcome to the TSQL2 language design working group!!!! First of all, thank you for agreeing to serve on the TSQL2 working group. I appreciate your willingness to devote a portion of your summer (and fall!) to this effort, which I believe will benefit the entire temporal database community. In this message, I propose some procedures, and elicit your reactions. A subsequent message will get the technical discussion going. This working group currently has 7 members. Ilsoo Ahn ahn@cbnvma.att.com Gadi Ariav ariav@taunivm.tau.ac.il Christian S. Jensen csj@iesd.auc.dk Ramez Elmasri elmasri@cse.uta.edu Fabio Grandi fabio@deis64.cineca.it Wolfgang Kaefer kaefer@informatik.uni-kl.de Richard Snodgrass rts@cs.arizona.edu I imagine that the group will expand somewhat over the next week (the mail to the tsql mailing list just went out yesterday). If you know of others who agree with the charter, you may want to encourage them to volunteer to participate. Interactions on our design should be via email to the entire group. The tsql mailing list should not be used for our discussions. I encourage you to set up a mail alias, say in your .mailrc file. Mine is alias wgtsql2 ahn@cbnvma.att.com ariav@taunivm.tau.ac.il csj@iesd.auc.dk elmasr i@cse.uta.edu fabio@deis64.cineca.it kaefer@informatik.uni-kl.de rts@cs.arizona .edu A few ground rules are in order. First, the group's charter listed the following constraints. * The initial design must be completed by August 23, 1993. I'll send more on this in a subsequent email message. * The design will be based on SQL2. In particular, none of the significant extensions envisioned in SQL3 will be assumed to be present. * Initially, the language design will support user-defined time and valid time. Support for transaction time may be added later. We need to discuss this further, per Ilsoo's email message. * The design will be implementable in the context of conventional relational database technology. In particular, implementations of the the data model and query language constructs will be possible without necessitating major changes to conventional database management systems. * Discrete time will be assumed. We need to discuss this further, per Ilsoo's email message. * Past and future valid time will be supported. The initial goal of this working group will be to develop a language design for a temporal extension of SQL. This is clearly a very ambitious goal. To encourage significant progress, I propose the following procedural rules. 1. Complete unanimity will in general not be possible, and so should not be required. On points of contention, the majority rules. It will of course be best if we achieve near unanimity on the important design aspects. 2. Rather than discussing abstract and often contentious issues, which generally leads to stalemate, the discussion will focus on concrete strawman proposals. In addition, the discussion will focus on semantic issues, initially eschewing syntactic concerns. 3. Constructive criticism is preferable. In particular, criticism should be accompanied by a concrete proposal that addresses the concern. 4. Design tasks will be given time limits in order to ensure adequate progress. Please respond quickly. Late responses, especially those that attempt to reopen discussion of aspects for which consensus was previously reached, are generally not productive. Those too busy or otherwise unable to respond should be prepared to accept the group's collective decision on the aspect under discussion. 5. A response is not necessary if one doesn't feel strongly about the issue under discussion or agrees with the statement(s) put forth for discussion. Finally, let's resolve the authorship question early. Any reports from the working group will be authored by all participants who contribute. I, as coordinator, will be the first author; the rest will be listed alphabetically. Anyone having substantial disagreement with any report can request that their name be removed. If you have any concerns about anything mentioned above, please raise it now, either with the entire group or with me. It is important that everyone be comfortable with these rules. The above is at this point only a proposal, and is not cast in stone. On a related matter, this first mailing to the working group is by necessity quite legalistic. In that way, I hope it is not representative of future interactions. Let me emphasize that I think that the participants of this group are ideally suited to the challenging task ahead, and I anticipate that we'll all find the discussions enlightening and ultimately very productive. I really do think that this group can have a significant and lasting impact on future temporal database research, standards, and commercial products. I am looking forward to working with this group. Sincerely, Rick