Charles William Bachman
USA- Biography of Charles William Bachman
- Unconventional Turing Award Laureate
- Contributions to Database Technology
- Recognition and Awards
Biography of Charles William Bachman
Charles William Bachman was an American scientist in the field of computer science, particularly in the development of databases. He was the recipient of the Turing Award, and the Bachman notation in the entity-relationship data model is named in his honor.
Unconventional Turing Award Laureate
Charles Bachman was an unconventional recipient of the Turing Award, as he conducted his research in private companies rather than academic institutions throughout his career. In 1950, Bachman started working for the major chemical company Dow Chemical. However, in 1960, he transitioned to General Electric, where he developed the Integrated Data Store, one of the earliest database management systems (DBMS) in the world.
Contributions to Database Technology
Later, while working for the small company Cullinet, Bachman developed a new version of his DBMS called IDMS, which supported IBM mainframes. In 1983, he founded Bachman Information Systems, a company specializing in computer-aided software engineering and reverse engineering techniques.
As one of the pioneers of the network model of databases, Bachman became famous for his heated debates with Edgar Codd, a British scientist in the field of relational database theory.
Recognition and Awards
In 1973, Charles Bachman was awarded the Turing Award for his "outstanding contributions to the development of database technology." In 1977, he was honored with distinguished fellowship in the British Computer Society and was inducted into the Database Hall of Fame.
