The geodetic requirements for commercial data base management systems

There are many data base management systems now available as commercially marketed software packages. Although most of these packages were initially aimed at bussiness or administrative data processing applications, they may frequently also be the right tool for a scientific data processing task. This becomes more apparent as we notice that scientific computer programmers are spending more and more time on data management requirements rather than the coding of mathematical algorithms. In a scientific environment, a generalized data base management package is best viewed as a tool for programmers, rather than as a tool for direct, independent use by end users or by agency management. To the end user, the most attractive feature of a commerical DBMS is usually the interactive retrieval and update language. To the programmer, the most attractive feature is more likely to be the strong support for various types of keyed access. All of the manipulations necessary to build and maintain indices and other tables can be treated as procedural abstractions. Coupled with a procedural language, a DBMS offers the programmer a higher level (in the sense of more abstract) language. The most important geodetic requirement on a commercial DBMS is therefore that the package contain a strong Data Manipulation Language, with strong support for the algorithmic language used for scientific processing. Presented at International Symposium on Management of Geodetic Data, Copenhagen, August 24–26, 1981.