The Schema-Independent Database UI: A Proposed Holy Grail and Some Suggestions

If you have ever encountered a piece of highly domain-specific business software, you may have noticed that it was largely a graphical front-end to some relational database. You may also, in fact, have avoided using the system at all—studies show that information workers prefer to dump their data into spreadsheets, a general and more familiar tool which, unfortunately, is poorly suited for many standard database tasks. It is time that we stop streamlining the process of creating a new application for every schema, and that we instead develop the visual query languages that will let endusers access the full power of relational database management systems from a simple and unified interface. Once information workers can create, manage, and query real databases with the same ease as they routinely manipulate spreadsheets today, they will never return to their schemadependent, consultant-made, and oddly-colored Microsoft Access applications.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CIDR
• Authors: Eirik Bakke, Edward Benson
• Keywords: Algorithms, CIDR 2011, Relational Database Management, Relational Database Management Systems, Visual Query Languages