computer science

Wayne Ratliff

Wayne Ratliff is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wayne Ratliff rather than just read about it. In short: Cecil Wayne Ratliff (born 1946) wrote the database program Vulcan. Raised in Germany and the US, he now resides in the Los Angeles area.

Key takeaways

Wayne Ratliff belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wayne Ratliff to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wayne Ratliff from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Cecil Wayne Ratliff (born 1946) wrote the database program Vulcan. Raised in Germany and the US, he now resides in the Los Angeles area.

Biography Ratliff was born in 1946 in Trenton, Ohio, USA. From 1969 to 1982 he worked for the Martin Marietta Corporation in a progression of engineering and managerial positions. He was a member of the NASA Viking program flight team when the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars in 1976, and wrote the data management system, MFILE, for the Viking lander support software. In 1978 Ratliff wrote Vulcan, a database application, to help him make picks for football pools. Written in Intel 8080 assembly language, it ran on the CP/M operating system and was modeled on JPLDIS. After selling Vulcan by himself from 1979 to 1980, he licensed the software, renamed dBASE, to Ashton-Tate. In 1982 Ratliff left JPL and joined Ashton-Tate as vice president of new technology. (He never used the software for its original purpose; in 1984 Ratliff confessed that dBASE had made him so busy that "I've only had time to watch two or three football games".) Ratliff was the project manager for dBASE III, as well as designer and lead programmer. From 1987 to 1988 Ratliff wrote Emerald Bay, a client/server database manager. Currently retired, Ratliff spends time sailing and studying mathematics. He has worked on computer systems for use in competitive sailboat racing. Ratliff's early career and projects are described in the book Programmers at Work, a collection of interviews published by Microsoft Press.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wayne Ratliff

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wayne Ratliff claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wayne Ratliff before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wayne Ratliff ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wayne Ratliff

In research: Wayne Ratliff appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wayne Ratliff in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wayne Ratliff is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1946 births, Computer scientist stubs, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wayne Ratliff outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Wayne Ratliff” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Wayne Ratliff in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wayne Ratliff means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wayne Ratliff out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wayne Ratliff in simple terms?

Cecil Wayne Ratliff (born 1946) wrote the database program Vulcan. Raised in Germany and the US, he now resides in the Los Angeles area.

Why does Wayne Ratliff matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wayne Ratliff?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wayne Ratliff.