Database: academic
Question: return me the authors who have papers in VLDB conference before 2002 .
SQL:
SELECT t1.name FROM publication AS t4 JOIN conference AS t2 ON t4.cid  =  t2.cid JOIN writes AS t3 ON t3.pid  =  t4.pid JOIN author AS t1 ON t3.aid  =  t1.aid WHERE t2.name  =  "VLDB" AND t4.year  <  2002;