1.6. Evolution of Data Access APIs

Database manufacturers have a history of optimizing data access by writing models as specific to their own databases as possible so that they can take advantage of database-specific features. Indeed, until ODBC, the data access API or the embedded SQL precompiler was considered as much a part of the database as the query optimizer or data monitoring tools. Until the advent of SQL and its adoption as a uniform query language for relational databases, each database shipped not only a data access API and tools but also a DBMS-specific query language. Despite claims by inventors of relational theory that SQL is flawed, this common, easy-to-use, powerful query language may be one of the reasons for the success of ...

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