Automatic Schema Generation — TypeDB/Vaticle
Visual GUI development of a TypeDB database schema
TypeDB is part of a new breed of database management tools that utilises Hypergraph Theory to define the database schema and for operations over data in that database. In an earlier article I outlined the architecture of the product I produce, FactEngine, which also overlays a hypergraph schema over a database/s using Object-Role Modeling as the key schema definition language.
There are several advantages of using Object-Role Modeling as hypergraphs, none least of which is the ability to morph between competing but complimentary views over the database schema. For instance, you can view the database schema under the relational model of relational databases and as a property graph schema as under the graph database/property graph model, as below:
Schema Schmema — Talking about the same thing
Graph database proponents, as opposed hypergraph proponents, argue that there is something particularly special about graph databases and that is peculiar to dedicated graph databases. I argue that there is nothing peculiar about a dedicated graph database that can’t otherwise be done with a relational database by simply looking at the problem of highly connected data differently. In a further article I argued that run-of-the-mill graph databases are decidedly lacking in key aspects that are peculiar to relational database and where the advantages of a relational database are “out of the box”. I also argue that relational database embody all the qualities of a hypergraph database.
Which is all to say that the limitations of a database come down to its core metamodel and fundamental design principals. Some databases are better at this, some at that, but in all…every database can be defined as a hypergraph and where hypergraphs subsume property graphs. You could say hypergraphs eat property graphs for lunch.
