DBMS, January 1997
TEN YEARS OF DBMS
Looking back and looking forward, DBMS covers database application development technologies.
I don't recall the exact date, but sometime in autumn 1988, I found myself browsing the magazine section of a bookstore near my office in Manhattan's financial district. I was searching for information that would help me better understand database application development when I found the premier issue of a new magazine named DBMS. The cover story discussed SQL database servers and their role in the emerging client/server model. Most of the other articles focused on developing multiuser Xbase applications, which suited me fine because I was managing the development of two large FoxBase+ applications.
With this issue, DBMS begins its 10th year of publication. It's hard to fathom how much has changed since 1988. I must confess that it's equally hard to visualize what an issue of DBMS will cover in 2007. Client/server was a new idea 10 years ago, and today some people ask if it has now run its course. Ten years from now, I suspect we will be considering another development that will supplant the net (the public Internet and private Intranets) as the focus of systems development efforts. Who knows what that new thing will be? I believe databases will still exist, and that developers will build applications to manage data stored in databases, but the details will change dramatically. If you agree, keep this in mind the next time you find yourself taking today's dilemmas too seriously.
Watching current trends unfold over the next year or two is a less mind-boggling but still tricky task. In 1997, DBMS will cover trends such as Internet and Intranet database application development, universal and object/relational DBMSs, distributed and multi-tier systems, components, object-orientation, and much more. I hope you will continue to turn to DBMS -- in both printed and electronic form -- to help you analyze and understand emerging database and application development technologies. Let me know what's important to you. Nothing is set in stone.
Meet the Staff
As a software professional, you know that building a system is a complicated task that requires the efforts of many specialists. Publishing a magazine every month is equally demanding. Yet the magazine appears regularly, which can make it look easy. It's not. Many talented people tirelessly contribute their expertise to make DBMS appear in your mailbox (and your Web browser) every month. In honor of our 10th anniversary issue, I've decided to bring the staff out from the shadows for a group photo ý something we haven't done since our very first issue. I hope that this will help you put faces behind the names you see here every month, as well as give the DBMS team the recognition it deserves. In closing, I'd like to thank you for your continued support of DBMS. I hope you will join us as we embark on what promises to be an exciting new decade.
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Updated Friday, December 13, 1996.