Designing Cypher - a Graph Query Language
summary
Five years of implementation work produce a concrete claim: a pattern‑matching, declarative graph language delivered as Cypher for Neo4j that compiles, caches, and runs in production. The team uses pattern MATCH/WITH/MERGE semantics, introduces labels as index bindings to eliminate separate search structures, balances sugar versus clarity, and documents surprising semantic wrinkles (aggregation vs row results, relationship‑binding rules). The language evolves with versioned queries and is being standardized as open Cypher while some warts remain.
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chapters (24)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:38Navigational database
- 2:52Objectoriented programming
- 3:58Objectoriented databases
- 5:31Data needs have changed
- 7:40Embedded database
- 9:45REST API
- 12:09Server Side API
- 15:17Gremlin
- 19:05Notion
- 22:56Writing Queries
- 25:27Search Structures
- 26:25Updates of Data
- 27:58Near
- 29:59Cypher Basics
- 33:50Cypher Versions
- 34:25User Studies
- 35:12Queries
- 36:18We havent figured out yet
- 37:39Semantics
- 39:22Syntax
- 41:11Parameters
- 41:24Open Cypher
- 41:57Conclusion
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