Deconstructing Datalog: A PhD Dissertation on the Enduring Influence of a Logic Programming Language
By
Michael Arntzenius
3h ago· 8 min readenInsight
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Golden Brown
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Summary
The article discusses the author's PhD dissertation on Datalog, a logic programming language from the 1980s that extends relational algebra with recursive queries. It highlights Datalog's simple semantics and efficient implementation, noting that despite its limited popularity, its influence continues to grow and be absorbed into mainstream computing. The author reflects on Datalog's limitations (no functions or procedures) while emphasizing its high power-to-weight ratio.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledLike Lisp and the Velvet Underground, its influence exceeds its popularity; its ideas are still being absorbed into the mainstream.
While Datalog has a high power-to-weight ratio, it is fairly limited.
Datalog is a logic programming language from the '80s that augments relational algebra with recursive queries.
In September 2022, after two rounds of revisions, I submitted the
final version of my PhD dissertation, Deconstructing Datalog.
Datalog is a logic programming language from the ’80s that augments relational algebra
with recursive queries. It has both simp
