© 1991 by British Computer Society
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Constraint Maintenance as a Data Model Design Criterion
Cornell University, Graduate School of Management, Ithaca, NY 15853, USA
The maintenance cost of database constraints is proposed as a data model design criterion. All previous design criteria are shown to be special cases of constraint maintenance. A human oriented design procedure based on this criterion is developed and shown to be applicable to a variety of data models including relational and functional. Human orientation is achieved by using natural deduction instead of resolution, simple heuristics instead of global optimisation, and a functional notation.
Received September 1987. revised August 1990.
* Cornell University, Graduate School of Management, Ithaca, NY 15853, USA