A Note by Chris Date on the Republication of Data and Reality

By Chris Date in 2012

I first read this book in draft form in the mid-1970s, and I enjoyed it immensely. Bill was a good friend of mine; we had many interests in common, including not least a deep and abiding love of the desert. Although we didn't always see eye to eye technically, our debates on technical issues were never acrimonious, and often enlightening to me. Of course, the world has moved on since then; I've learned a lot myself in the intervening years, and I'm quite sure there are aspects of Bill's book that I would disagree with now more than I did then! (His characterization of the relational model is certainly a case in point.) But this is quibbling. Here's a lightly edited version of what I wrote myself by way of annotation on his book when I referenced it some years later in a book of my own:

[Bill's book is a] stimulating and thought-provoking discussion of the nature of information…. "This book projects a philosophy that life and reality are at bottom amorphous, disordered, contradictory, inconsistent, non-rational, and nonobjective" (excerpt from the final chapter). The book can be regarded in large part as a compendium of real-world problems that (it is suggested) existing database formalisms have difficulty in dealing with. Recommended.

I still stand by these remarks today. (Though I have to say that the reference to "a compendium of real-world problems" does remind me—I don't think Bill would mind me saying this—that I always thought of Bill as being, philosophically, at one with the apocryphal trainee officer of whom an exasperated instructor wrote in his final report: "This man can be relied upon to find the set of circumstances in which any given plan can be guaranteed not to work.")

In all seriousness, though, I'm very glad to see Bill's book being given a new lease on life in this way. I hope it wins him many new fans. For me, it brings Bill very strongly back to mind, and in my imagination I can see his face again and hear once again his gruff voice saying "But what about…." I wish the book every success.