Edgar Frank Codd Biography

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World of Computer Science on Edgar Frank Codd

Edgar Frank Codd is best know for his work on databases, specifically the invention of the first abstract model for database management.

Edgar Frank Codd was born in 1923 in Portland, England. In 1942, after his schooling, Codd joined the Royal Air Force where he became a captain. At the end of the World War II Codd resumed his academic career. In 1948 he was awarded a B.A. in mathematics from Oxford University, which, due to the peculiar rules of the university, was subsequently converted into an M.A.

After the completion of his degree Codd moved to the United States where he obtained a position as an instructor in mathematics at the University of Tennessee. He remained in this role for only one year before he decided to join the IBM Corporation as a mathematician and programmer to work on the SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic Computer) project in New York. He worked on this project from 1949 to 1951, and then from 1951 to 1952 he worked as designer of the IBM 701 and 702 computers. The 701 was initially named the Defense Calculator, and the 702 was the first computer designed for business rather than scientific usage. In the years 1953 to 1957 Codd worked for Computing Devices of Canada. In 1957 he returned to IBM where he was the designer of STRETCH (the IBM 7030) and the creator of STEM (statistical database expert manager). STRETCH and STEM were the first multi-programmed control systems capable of managing the concurrent and interleaved execution of programs designed independently of each other--the first attempt at multitasking.

From 1961 to 1965 Codd was on leave from IBM while he undertook Ph.D. studies at the University of Michigan. Codd's Ph.D. was in communication sciences and his thesis was on self-reproducing computers consisting of a large number of simple identical cells, each of which could interact in a uniform manner with its four immediate neighbors. Academic Press eventually published this work in 1968 as Cellular Automata. This work was a continuation and simplification of the work of John von Neumann. Returning to IBM in 1969 Codd missed the start of System/360, but he arrived at a time when there was a massive push for the development of a universal language. It was anticipated that this universal language would tie together with the System/360 project, providing software with the same basic concepts as the hardware. Of the competing projects offered, Codd favored the proposals put forward by the IBM laboratory in Vienna, Austria. This language was indeed adopted and it became known as the Vienna Definition Language (VDL). In parallel with his efforts to get VDL accepted Codd was working on relational database models--a task he would continue with until 1981. As a direct result of this work, (which initially IBM had been reluctant to support) IBM released SQL / DS in 1982. This release was the first relational model database management system for mid-sized systems. In 1983 DB2 was released for running on large systems. Codd eventually retired from IBM in 1984. Codd's retirement led him to set up two successful companies dedicated to providing lecturing and consultancy services to users of database management systems.

Codd has also spent time working on normalization forms; the Boyce-Codd Normalization Form is named after him and his co-worker Raymond F. Boyce. The Boyce-Codd Normalization Form is sometimes referred to as the "fourth normal form." Normal forms are necessary for the good design of a relational database. The Boyce-Codd Normalization Form is concerned with the elimination of redundancy in relational databases caused by partial dependencies as well as eliminating anomalies caused by dependencies and not eliminated by any of the other normalization forms.

During his lifetime Codd has been given a number of awards. In 1974 he was elected a fellow of the British Computer Society; in 1976 he was made a fellow for life by IBM. In 1981 he was awarded the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Turing Award for his work on relational systems; in 1983 he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering; then in 1994 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.