A relational database is a big spreadsheet that several people can update simultaneously As someone who works on a "big spreadsheet that several people can upd

A relational database is a big spreadsheet that several people can update simultaneously As someone who works on a "big spreadsheet that several people can update simultaneously", I can't resist making an off-topic comment. The analogy between spreadsheets and relational databases is seductive because both appear to use tables (actually, spreadsheets use a grid addressing system which only looks like a table). But really the two are from different planets: their data models as well as their computational models are incompatible. For example, compare how databases relate data (foreign keys) to how spreadsheets do it (cell references). What do these have in common? Basically nothing. The point may seem esoteric, but there have been lots of attempts to combine spreadsheets and databases and they all run aground on this mismatch. Crude integration a la import/export works ok, but the perennial dream of having a true spreadsheet on top of a relational database is out of the question unless you sacrifice efficiency, which you can't. I do wonder sometimes how far you could get implementing SQL on top of spreadsheet data. As an aside, it's interesting that the research literature on databases is vast and rich while the literature on spreadsheets (alas!) approximates nil.