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Chris Date
Born	1941 (age 68–69) Watford, England
Nationality	UK
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Occupation	author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant, specializing in relational database theory
Employer	(until 1983) IBM
Known for	relational database theory

Chris Date (born 1941) is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant, specializing in relational database theory.

Biography

Chris Date attended High Wycombe Royal Grammar School (U.K.) from 1951 to 1958 and received his B.A. in Mathematics from Cambridge University (U.K.) in 1962. He entered the computer business as a mathematical programmer at Leo Computers Ltd. (London), where he quickly moved into education and training. In 1966, he earned his Master's degree at Cambridge, and, in 1967, he joined IBM Hursley (U.K) as a programming instructor. Between 1969 and 1974, he was a principal instructor in IBM's European education program.

While working at IBM he was involved in technical planning and design for the IBM products SQL/DS and DB2. He was also involved with Edgar F. Codd's relational model for database management. He left IBM in 1983 and has written extensively of the relational model, in association with Hugh Darwen.

His book An Introduction to Database Systems, currently in its 8th edition, is widely regarded as one of the fundamental texts on the subject. It has sold well over 700,000 copies^[1] not counting translations and is used by several hundred colleges and universities worldwide.

He is also the author of many other books on data management, most notably Databases, Types, and the Relational Model, subtitled and commonly referred to as The Third Manifesto, currently in its third edition (note that earlier editions were titled differently, but maintained the same subtitle), a detailed and sweeping proposal for the future direction of DBMSs.

Works

Chris Date is the author of several books, including:

• An Introduction to Database Systems, ISBN 0-321-19784-4
• Databases, Types, and the Relational Model, The Third Manifesto (with Hugh Darwen), ISBN 0-321-39942-0
• [emporal Data & the Relational Model, ISBN 1-55860-855-9
• Database in Depth: Relational Theory for Practitioners, ISBN 0-596-10012-4
• Several editions of Relational Database Writings., ISBN 0-201-39814-1, ISBN 0-201-82459-0, ISBN 0-201-54303-6, ISBN 0-201-50881-8.
• What Not How: The Business Rules Approach to Application Development., ISBN 0-201-70850-7
• The Database Relational Model: A Retrospective Review and Analysis., ISBN 0-201-61294-1

In recent years he has published articles with Fabian Pascal at Database Debunkings.

See also

• Hugh Darwen
• Nikos Lorentzos
• David McGoveran
• Fabian Pascal
• Lex de Haan

References

External links

• The Third Manifesto website maintained by Date and Hugh Darwen
• Some Articles by C.J. Date
• His Introduction to Database Systems is widely cited in the field with over 400 citations at present according to citeseer.
• Oral history interview with C.J. Date by Thomas Haigh on the Computer History Museum website.