In the end, we all learned to work with SQL, and to go around its idiosyncrasies. We even learned how to put objects in tables and to force trees into rectangles.
He invented Alpha as part of his relational theorem, although it was never implemented. QUEL, of the Ingres/Postgres lineage, was heavily influenced by the design of Alpha and is the closest thing we have to what he envisioned.
> In the end, we all learned to work with SQL, and to go around its idiosyncrasies.
In the same way we've learned to work with C and all its memory idiosyncrasies. But let's keep that between you and me as the poor Rust crowd is going to cry when you tell them that their language is unnecessary.
The problems Codd speaks of here are exactly the source of database-related bugs I continually see out in the wild. I'd expect to see it even more frequently, but a lot of developers have started using higher level languages like 'ORMs' that add some layer of protection from those issues. It aged quite well, frankly.
In the end, we all learned to work with SQL, and to go around its idiosyncrasies. We even learned how to put objects in tables and to force trees into rectangles.