[jemfinch]

> If I'll ever meet Aliens I'm sure lists, sets, hash tables, and trees are in their CS books as well. But I bet their mainstream DB model may really be different than our relational one.

I actually doubt that. The relational database model (relational algebra/calculus, tuples, etc.) is a mathematical model. I would expect aliens to have essentially the same model, actually, just like I'd expect them to have the same set theory we do. They're equally as basic.

[antirez]

I don't agree: the relational model is a pretty specific and ad-hoc idea that can be mathematically modeled using trivial math structures. For sure they could understand it in a second and recognize this as part of their math, but will their mainstream database systems be modeled after the same model? I doubt it.

Instead I would expect to see lists, hashes, trees, and most of our sorting algorithms in their code as well.