Comment by cmrdporcupine

I actually see ECS as a subset of the relational data model. It's effectively binary relations, in database / E.F. Codd terms.

When you look at it from that angle, rather than as an optimization technique, it makes it clear there is actually an elegant programming model here.

Unfortunately game engine programmers tend to think databases are super uncool and not relevant. They could actually learn a lot.

"flecs" pulls in some concepts from the relational algebraic world in that it has some sense of joins, etc. but it's a bit ad hoc.

The ultimate "data oriented design" game engine could be a high speed, GPU/SIMD accelerated, in-memory Datalog engine. And then the game world expressed in Horn clauses and logic.

https://github.com/timbran-project/mica is some of my playing in this area.