Web Data and the Resurrection of Database Theory

Abstract

Since the seventies, database theory has contributed a number of landmark results that have helped databases become a multi-billion dollar industry, and the database field a mature research area. But as the area matured, theory has had fewer opportunities to contribute to a more and more static field. In PODS 1995, a famous paper by Christos Papadimitriou analyzed the health of database theory and stopped short of saying that the area was in a crisis.