SQL was an implementation of Edgar F. Codd's , which provided an algebraic basis for modeling databases. The mathematical model assured that all SQL databases would return the same results to the same queries, given the same data. And because most of the database vendors such as IBM adopted the model, programmers could just learn SQL, rather than a new language for each database.

Meijer and Bierman claim that NoSQL could benefit from the same standardization. "Just as Codd's discovery of relational algebra as a formal basis for SQL ... propelled a billion-dollar industry around SQL, we believe that our categorical data-model formalization and monadic query language will allow the same economic growth to occur for coSQL key-value stores," they write.

The researchers also cast doubt on the widely held assumption that NoSQL databases are uniquely suited to tasks of storing large amounts of data, or as it is known. "It is possible to scale SQL databases by careful partitioning," they write.

"Despite common wisdom, SQL and coSQL are not diabolically opposed, but instead deeply connected via beautiful mathematical theory," they write.

The IDG News Service