In our article The Pure Relational database is dead there were a lot of misunderstandings as a result of our poor choice of words. People thought we were bashing the relational model because in their mind that was what pure meant. I got hit with a lot of poetic insults. I still can’t think of an alternative word to use for what I meant. Simple doesn’t really do it as even relational databases with just standard types were far from simple when you consider the planner and all the other stuff going on under the hood to protect you from the underlying storage structure. What I was trying to say is that in the beginning most relational databases just supported a standard set of types which you could not expand on and most people when they think relational today still think just that. That type of relational database is in my book dead or almost dead.Mas:

http://www.postgresonline.com/journal/archives/236-The-Relational-Model-is-very-much-alive.html