The time format
We suggest the use of instants 0, 1, ..., NOW
instead of dates. This avoids unnecessary distaraction.
Identifiers
For better readability We suggest relation names start with lower case
characters and attribute names start with
upper case characters.
Database instance
The database instance needs improvement.
It should also be listed in a tabular format.
Taxonomy
We do not endorse the taxonomy proposed in the
main body of this document. We feel it trivializes
the issues and is a major distraction. This does
not mean that we ourselves have a taxonomy which
would be acceptable to all. In our
experience in temporal databases, we have
learnt some rules of thumb, and that is all.
Similarly, others may have their rules of thumb.
Giving these rules of thumb a coherent form
is desirable, but will be a challanging task.
The basis of such a taxonomy should be in
structure of English (a natural language).
Instead, the proposed
taxonomy already assumes the temporal
query languages to have a specific form.
Important questions
We would like the following queries to be included in the benchmark. The queries are natural queries that might be asked against a temporal database. Some of the queries bring out the features mentioned above under ``Imporatant Questions''.