EAS-E(ID:3815/eas003)

for Entity Attribute Set

Simulations and database programming language from IBM Watson Lab

Attempt by Markovitz to get to level 6 or 7 of Kiavat's simulation language requirements

People:
Structures:
Related languages
SIMSCRIPT II => EAS-E   Influence
References:
  • Malhotra, A., Markowitz, H.M., and Pazel, D.P. "The EAS-E programming language". RC 8935, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown His., N.Y., July 1981. view details
  • Markowltz, H.M., Malhotra, A., and Pazel, D.P. "The ER and EAS formalisms for system modeling and the EAS-E language" pp. 29-48. view details
          in Proceedings of the 2nd International Confereence on the Entity-Relationship Approach (Washington, D.C., Oct. 12-14, 1981) view details
  • A. Malhotra and H. M. Markowitz and D. P. Pazel "EAS-E: an integrated approach to application development" ACM Transactions on Database Systems 8 (4) (December 1983) view details DOI Abstract: EAS-E (pronounced EASY) is an experimental programming language integrated with a database management system now running on VM/370 at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. The EAS-E programming language is built around the entity, attribute, and set (EAS) view of application development. It provides a means for translating operations on EAS structures directly into executable code. EAS-E commands have an English-like syntax, and thus EAS-E programs are easy to read and understand. EAS-E programs are also more compact than equivalent programs in other database languages. The EAS-E database management system allows many users simultaneous access to the database. It supports locking and deadlock detection and is capable of efficiently supporting network databases of various sizes including very large databases, consisting of several millions of entities stored on multiple DASD extends. Also available is a nonprocedural facility that allows a user to browse and update the database without writing programs.
          in Proceedings of the 2nd International Confereence on the Entity-Relationship Approach (Washington, D.C., Oct. 12-14, 1981) view details
  • Markowitz, H.M., Malhotra, A., and Pazel, D.P. The EAS-E application development system, RC 9910, IBM T,J. Watson Research Center. Yorktown His., N.Y., Apr. 1983. view details
          in Proceedings of the 2nd International Confereence on the Entity-Relationship Approach (Washington, D.C., Oct. 12-14, 1981) view details
  • Pazel, D.P., Malhotra, A., and Markowitz, "H.M. The system architecture of EAS-E: an integrated programming/database language" pp188-198 view details
          in IBM Systems Journal, 22(3) 1983 view details
  • Markowitz, H, A. Malhotra, A. Pazel. "The EAS-E application development system" view details Abstract: EAS-E is based on the entity-attribute-set view of system description—a useful formalism for system modeling and planning even when programming is done in languages other than EAS-E. Extract: Introduction
    INTRODUCTION
    EAS-E (pronounced EASY) is an experimental programming language integrated with a database management system now running on VM/370 at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. The programming language is in fact a manifestation of the entity, attribute, and set (EAS) philosophy of application development. In this, a conceptual framework in terms of entities, attributes, and sets is used to analyze the application or system to be developed. The entities,
    attributes, and sets describe the status of the application at a given moment in time. Points in time at which the status changes are called events. (EAS-E is an acronym from Entities, Attributes, Sets, and Events.)

    The EAS-E programming language provides commands for manipulating EAS structures. Thus, the power and convenience of the language is based on the power and convenience of the EAS formalism. We shall see later that real-world relationships can be modeled easily and directly in terms of EA.S structures. Changes to these structures can be expressed immediately in terms of EAS-E commands. Thus, the programming language is directly tied into a philosophy for modeling the application domain. The entity, attribute, and set model is discussed in Section 2. The EAS-E programming language is discussed in Section 3.

    EAS-E commands have an English-like syntax. This, combined with its direct relation to the EAS model, makes EAS-E programs readable and understandable. Counterintuitively, EAS-E programs are also considerably shorter than equivalent programs in other database languages. This is demonstrated in Sections 3.5 and 3.6.

    The EAS status of an application is either changed by procedural programs written in the EAS-E programming language or by BROWSE, a nonprocedural facility for examining and updating a database. BROWSE is discussed in Section 4.

    Finally, EAS-E programs are efficient. This is partly due to the efficiency of network databases and partly due to our implementation: for example, the manner in which we hold database ranked sets. This is discussed in Section 5.1.

    Other implementation topics are discussed in Sections 5.2 and 5.3.
    The EAS-E database management system allows several users simultaneous
    access to the database. It supports locking and deadlock detection and is capable of efficiently supporting network databases of various sizes, including very large databases consisting of several millions of entities stored on multiple DASD extents. Section 6 discusses the EAS-E database management system.
          in [ACM] CACM 27(08) (August 1984) view details
  • Subieta, Kazimierz "Semantics of query languages for network databases" view details Abstract: Semantics determines the meaning of language constructs; hence it says much more than syntax does about implementing the language. The main purpose of this paper is a formal presentation of the meaning of basic language constructs employed in many database languages (sublanguages). Therefore, stylized query languages SSL (Sample Selection Language) and J (Joins) are introduced, wherein most of the typical entries present in other query languages are collected. The semantics of SSL and J are defined by means of the denotational method and explained informally. In SSL and J, four types of expressions are introduced: a selector (denotes a set of addresses), a term (denotes a set of values), a formula (denotes a truth value), and a join (denotes a set of n-tuples of addresses or values). In many cases alternative semantics are given and discussed. In order to obtain more general properties of the proposed languages, a new database access model is introduced, intended to be a tool for the description of the logical access paths to data. In particular, the access paths of the network and relational models can be described. SSL and J expressions may be addressed to both data structures. In the case of the relational model, expressions of J are similar to SQL or QUEL statements. Thus J may be considered a generalization of relational query languages for the network model. Finally, a programming language, based on SSL and J, is outlined, and the issues of SSL and J implementation are considered.
          in Transactions on Data Systems 10(3) Sept 1985 view details