Databases

Review by Christopher S. Susi:

A few days after reading 1/2 the book I nearly wrote a review giving the book 0 stars. Truly pages 50-200 can be condensed into about 10 pages. However, the chapters about building the tables, relationships, fields attributes, business rules are very well written to give an overview for the non-technical person or somebody getting started. Also, many times books that teach a language will avoid fundamental skills such as database design and these are more important than understanding syntax (you will know if your syntax is wrong when you run the program, you wont know your design is f-ed up till 6 months into implementation). If you haven’t had database design exposure through a Comp Sci program, this is an excellent starting point. Due to it’s non-technical descriptions this is a good read if you are overseeing software/database project (project manager, manager commisioning a design house, etc.) and are not entirely computer literate.On the downside, I would have liked it if he did associate the various nomalization terms that he ends up discussing but without actually saying that is what they are (e.g. breaking apart multi-valued fields, etc). Certainly if you have seen this already and would like more detailed information then consider Teorey’s Database Modeling & Design which is more advanced.

Review by :

I was first introduced to this book in College while I was learning relational database design and modeling concepts. Almost anyone can open Access and build a database, but are they doing it correctly? Knowing how to do something and WHY you are doing it are entirely different things. This book takes complicated technical information and breaks it out into an efficient and easy to understand format that anyone from a beginner to an expert can use and understand. Not only do you finish understanding the how and the why of relational design, but you have also been exposed to the detailed process of designing for others, methods of interviewing and example questions that show you how to get the information you need from your users that’s crucial to your design. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it since the concepts are software independent. At my last job, our SQL DBA called this book his Bible. I just recently ordered it again for a friend who’s beginning to learn about databases. Two thumbs up!

Review by Bjorn D. Tyreus:

While having many years of object-oriented design and programming experience, until recently I had no experience in designing or implementing relational databases. I learn by reading so I picked up several of the top-rated books on the subject. I found Clare Churcher’s book to be the best by far! There are two aspects of the book I found particularly attractive. First, it is short and to the point. You can read it in a day or two and learn enough of the essentials to get started on your first database design project, I did. Second, it clearly demonstrates the relationship between object-oriented data modeling and relational database design. The latter aspect made the concepts and examples particularly easy for me to understand and I suspect it will do the same for anyone else reading this book with an object-oriented programming background. Simply a great book!

Review by K. Pate:

This book does a great job of explaining data modeling, including how it corresponds to tables in a database. The book is well-written and very organized, and the examples do a good job of illustrating the concepts. It’s also mercifully short compared to other options.

It’s appropriate for database beginners, and for experiences developers who are getting into database design for the first time. There’s a section on how this all relates to OOP, with no focus on a specific language.

The examples apply to any database systems that support standard SQL including Access and MySQL. Note that the book does not cover Access and MySQL directly — you’ll need different resources for that. For MySQL, the tutorials on the MySQL site itself are a surprisingly good place to start.

This book tells you how to think about your database *before* you begin to develop it, which can be critical if you’re designing anything even slightly complicated.

I’m developing a Ruby on Rails web app, and this book really helped me think through some issues that I had not considered until now.

Review by Leonard Ansin:

Database Design Solutions, By Rod Stephens is a book that offers “expert practical experience” to assist the reader in creating a flexible and robust database even if this is your first database. A database properly designed from the start will prove rewarding and beneficial to the users. A poorly designed database, will lead to continuing headaches and frustration for the developer and most likely lost customers.

The book is clear, well written and appeals to the readers. It covers a lot of ground in different chapters. It guides you in developing business rules, explains what normalization is and gives an overview of different types of databases such as Access, SQL and My Sql. It will direct you how to start SQL statements and query constructions.

My feeling is of all the chapters in the book, the best are Chapter 4, Understanding User Needs, Chapter 7, Normalization, Chapter 9, Common Design Patterns and Chapter 10, Common Design Pitfalls. These were the most informative that appealed to me.

No matter whether you are a beginner or an experienced Database developer, this book is a must for you. It will give you the basics to start the development correctly and if you are experienced, it gives you the support to be sure your doing existing databases correctly.

This book is a must read for anyone doing database development.

By Leonard Ansin (Waltham, MA USA)

Review by DM:

I am the director (and sole employee) of a newly formed non-profit. I came to this book with little prior programming experience, and found it to be all I was looking for as far as designing a database to meet our foundation’s needs. A real strength of the book is that the author walks you through a wealth of examples, and provides many more to think through on your own–all with answers in the back of the book. So it’s almost guaranteed there will be something which matches or parallels what you are trying to do. I read the book straight through, and found the order in which the material was presented to be logical and very well thought out. I also appreciated the dry humor sprinkled throughout this book–I would often find myself perking up and smiling to myself through a subject which a lesser author could turn into tedium.

Review by Paul Rogers:

A few years back, I created a special-purpose, custom-built, high-speed relational DBMS using just this book and general computer science knowledge. Darn thing blew the socks off more general purpose solutions and was very stable even after a crash. The book covers access methods, indexing, logging, crash recovery and other basics.

If you want to know how database systems are built at the nuts & bolts level, this is for you. If you want to know how to use a database system, or how to design an application database then this is not your book; choose a “user-level” book instead. If you want to know about the latest research directions, then pass on this one as well since it only covers the tried & true basics.

Review by Christian Gleissner:

I compared this book with two other reference books (Date and Elmasri/Navathe). This book is the best of the three when it comes to presenting the whole database field with a special focus on the design of databases. The key differences to the other books I compared it with are that Date focuses much more on the relational model, whilst Elmasri/Navathe has many side-notes on Oracle and Access. This book by Ramakrishnan/Gehrke deals more with design aspects of databases and gives a broad, yet also somewhat deep introduction in this respect. It does not say much about any database systems on the market but focuses more on concepts. If you are specifically interested in database design, I would recommend getting an advanced book that deals with these issues. However, if you are looking for a general dbms reference book with a special focus on design, this is the best book on the market. Unlike other books (for instance Date), it is also written in a very effective manner and comes right to the point. This easy style is especially advantageous when it comes to more difficult topics such as normalization. Where others delight in formalization, this book actually explains. Solutions for half of the questions in the book can be downloaded from the author’s website by anyone.

Review by D. Davitian:

I’ve been reading technical books for the last 20 years and this is one of my favorites! The information is clean and accurate, you can plow through the book relatively quickly, and the concepts are presented very clearly. I highly recommend it – the “arm and a leg” you save may be your own.

The subtitle says, “A Self-Teaching Guide”, and that is exactly what you get. I found the prose approachable and the chapters very well organized. Other books sometimes offer an esoteric quiz at the end of the chapter, but this quiz actually helps focus the reader on the main points. Nobody leaves wondering what matters most.

The book targets the novice. However, it doesn’t skimp on the critical, classic database issues such as the outer join, choosing primary and alternate keys, data normalization, good data modeling, and the differences between physical and logical design. Don’t dismiss the book if you think that you are already pretty knowledgeable — I guarantee you’ll learn something new. I know that I did.

I was surprised at the treatment given to Security. Instead of limiting the discussion entirely to database security, the book expanded briefly into some adjacent areas. Anyone that works with a database should know this information, but it’s hard to find it so well ordered. Great coverage.

I do have one objection. After reading it, I thought it would be great to sit down and interview the author to learn more. It’s not that anything is missing, but this complex topic was made very approachable…it left me looking for more. Sometimes the audience hates you at the end of the show, but this refreshingly straightforward leaves you ready for more.

I look forward to the next book, where I expect the author explains how to “kick it up a notch” and become a Database Jedi Master. With a foundation like this, I know I’ll be ready!

Review by T. Winther:

Very, very good introduction to databases. I’m mostly self-taught in the DB field, and felt that although I knew and understood most concepts at a reasonable level, there were a few bits and pieces missing. I bought this book in the hope that it would help me find those bits and pieces, and wasn’t disappointed. This book would be excellent value if it cost more; at it’s current price it’s mindbogglingly good value.

Review by Andrew McCaffrey:

I used FUNDAMENTALS OF DATABASE SYSTEMS (Third Edition) in a graduate class I took on databases, and I’ve kept referring to the book since then. As a student, I’ll admit that it was tough to get through this book at times. It’s dense and almost impenetrable, but it packs a huge amount of information and is amazingly comprehensive.It puts theory well ahead of practical matters, which gives the novice a good foundation from which to really get a firm handle on how all these pieces fit together. The assumption is that the student knows nothing, even B-trees are devoted several pages of explanation. The student who does know nothing will doubtless find this wealth of data to be overwhelming at first (as I did). But stick at it. This textbook is not for people looking at how to simply plug things into Microsoft Access. It’s for programmers seriously looking to gain a strong background in what the fundamental elements of database components and systems are.The text starts off simply, merely explaining in general terms what databases are and who will use them. Then we quickly move into modeling how relational databases work. Data Modeling and Entity-Relationship Models are described in-depth, and the book comes back to ER modeling and mapping repeatedly. Object Models are covered, as well as the best ways of sorting records and the best way to index tables. The authors offer a wealth of information concerning the SQL language — so much so, that there’s much that I simply haven’t used since reading about it, although I’m sure that more advanced database programmers in the audience will find it very enlightening.It continues on with Object-Oriented Database technologies, functional dependencies, and normal forms (first, second, third and Boyce-Codd normal form). Higher system views of database architecture are also discussed, giving us an understanding of how different parts are working together. Optimization, recovery, maintenance and security are naturally touched on, as are distributed databases and the basic client/server architecture relationship. As you can see, this is all very theoretical, although some real-life explanations and examples are brought in. But it is by building up a solid knowledge base that will allow the reader to truly understand systems when encountered in the classroom or in the workplace.I’ve only touched on a handful of things that the book details in its 1000+ pages. It’s packed with mathematical formulas, computer science algorithms, schema design, and the minutua of every database operation. Its approach doesn’t make things easy, but it does contain everything you’d want to know about a given item. I had to read various sections multiple times for my coursework, obviously, but every time I studied a passage, I would uncover details and concepts that I had missed the last time. Even now as reference material, I always find myself learning (or relearning) something when consulting this book. Although in my current job I don’t require a massive amount of database knowledge, I still find this an extremely useful reference guide. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know if I would find this text helpful if I hadn’t taken a course that taught from it. It’s certainly intimidating to a beginner. But if you’re a moderate to intermediate database programmer, you’ll find this an invaluable guide to filling in the gaps in your knowledge. It may be a bit too dense and scary to serve as your only teacher, but you’ll probably find it an important one.

Review by RJ (rpoddar@iac.net):

This book has just the right mix of database theory and its practical applications. I’ve studied other books of the ilk and found that this book has a leg up on them in that it doesn’t get too hung up on providing proofs for concepts that are either very intuitive or just not worth going into too detailed a proof for. It also provides a good review of “modern” database techniques like Object Oriented database, deductive databases, etc.The book could use a little more polish in terms of grammatical correctness. Besides, in my opinion, some concepts, as explained in the book, are just plain wrong. There is no way for one to contact the authors for clarification either.

Review by jackofsometrades:

I bought this book for a DBMS course in a university and I liked it. This is the best written book compared to any IT book on any subject I’ve read. Everything seems so easy and simple with this. And this covers a lot of ground, enough at least for any basic level DBMS course. It covers the basics, SQL, (E)ER-diagrams, O-O db’s, warehousing, etc.What this is NOT: this is not a hands-on guide for real work. This is the first introduction to what you should know before beginning any DB-related work.

Review by Jeff Stephens:

Good up-to-date introductory text on Database Systems. It covers all the bases although in a less quantative way than the Elmasri/Navathe or Ramakrishnan/Gehrke texts. Excellent web based support material. Also, if you get the Oracle Edition (ISBN 0201383721) you’ll get 3 great CD’s: Oracle Designer/2000, Rel. 2.1; Oracle Developer/2000, Rel. 2.1, and Personal Oracle 7, Rel. 7.3.4. I found this package of text and CD’s to be the best value on the market.

Review by Michael Cohn:

This is an excellent book that, in my opinion, serves two purposes. First, it is a compendium of well thought-out ways to evolve a database design. Each refactoring includes descriptions of why you might make this change, tradeoffs to consider before making it, how to update the schema, how to migrate the data, and how applications that access the data will need to change. Some of the refactorings are simple ones that even the most change-resistant DBAs will have used in the past (“Add index”). Most others (such as “Merge tables” or “Replace LOB with Table”) are ones many conventional thinking DBAs avoid, even to the detriment of the applications their databases support.

This brings me to the second purpose of this book. Many DBAs view their jobs as protectors of the data. While that is admirable, they sometimes forget that they are part of a software development team whose job is to provide value to the organization through the development of new (and enhancement of existing) applications. One of the best DBAs I ever worked with viewed himself as a “Data Valet.” He said his job was to make sure the data was presented to applications when and where they wanted and to protect the doors from getting dinged while under his care. Through its first five chapters and then the refactorings that follow, this book will help DBAs expand their view of their role in the organization from one of simply protecting data to one of enhancing the value of data to the organization.

This book is one that you’ll keep on your reference shelf for many years to come. Highly recommended.

Review by Base Aware:

It’s been almost 7 years since Fowler’s Refactoring book, and now the database community has finally caught up with the rest of us. This book shows how to refactor a relational database schema, working you through the detailed process steps for doing so and providing the source code for implementing more database refactorings than I would have thought existed.

The first five chapters describe how to go about database refactoring. Chapter 1 overviews the idea that you can evolve your database schema in small steps, a radical departure for many traditional DBAs. It also overviews the need for supporting techniques such as agile data modeling, database regression testing, and version control of your data models and scripts. I would have liked to see more coverage of these topics, but at least the modeling material is covered in Ambler’s Agile Modeling book and there are some great SCM books out there.

Chapters 2 and 3 walk through the process of implementing a database refactoring, first through the simple situation where there is only a handful of applications accessing the database. I guess this sort of thing happens in smaller companies, but most of the time you really have to worry about scores of applications accessing your database which is a much harder situation. This is actually the focus of Chapter 3 and of the presented solutions in Chapters 6 through 11 which provide reference implementations for all of the database refactorings. This approach belies the true strength of the book: it reflects actual experience in large organizations, not just the theoretical pie in the sky stuff you see from other authors.

Chapter 4 focuses on deploying database refactorings in production, providing detailed instructions for how to roll refactorings between various sandboxes. It importantly describes how to merge the refactorings of several teams together. If you have 100 applications accessing a shared database, then potentially you need to manage the refactorings coming from 100 different development teams. Of course it would never be that bad, but even merging refactorings from 10 teams would be tough. This might be where the technique falls apart because many companies likely don’t have data managers who are skilled enough to do this sort of thing efficiently enough to keep up with agile developers. We need new tools, so hopefully companies like Oracle will build something for us.

Chapter 5 describes a collection of best practices and challenges pertaining to refactoring databases. The authors share their experiences as well as identify potential issues, such as a lack of tooling and agile expertise within the data community, that could slow adoption of this technique. My guess is that the smarter teams within companies will start doing this stuff right away, for the most part it’s pretty easy technically, but that bigger companies will struggle to change as they always do.

Chapters 6+ are reference descriptions for the individual refactorings. Each one is described using a UML data model, which is a little strange at first although once you get used to it you can see how it’s a much better notation than Crow’s feet, a detailed text description and source code. The source code examples are detailed, I guess the authors want to be thorough and provide a complete solution so that there’s no question how to implement each refactoring. The application examples are written in Java or Hibernate, but they’re simple enough that you could see how to implement them in C#, C++, Ruby, or even VB. The database code is Oracle, once again it’s pretty straightforward so you can easily see how it would work in other DBs like Sybase or MySQL.

All in all, if you’re a DBA or agile programmer you need to seriously think about buying this book.

Review by Danny Cooper:

I’m a technical person but have very little DB experience and purchased the book because I had to for a college class. I feel the book was simply OK. Some points were made well others I had to read several times. Over all the explanations were not as concise as I would like but in all fairness DB concepts are hard to explain. The overall layout was good however I think there should have been more attention during the intro to familiarize the reader with DB’s and the related concepts before delving in to the details of each phase of DB creation.

My only real gripe is that a new revision is published every year and the previous version of the 0 + dollar book becomes worthless. To save money I bought the previous version and found all the material I needed. However for the final exam the instructor of the online class gave us page numbers to use as reference so I was forced to buy the latest version which was the same book with a few new references…

If you are buying this book for reference or if you are buying this because you are taking a face to face class I recommend that you buy the previous version required by the instructor at a greatly reduced cost. You may be able to do this w/ an online class if the professor (or classmates) are flexible and willing to help reconcile the different page numbers.

Review by Phoebe H:

Book does not come with the student content that it is suppose to come with. It is supposed to come with online appendices A though L and downloads for files used in each chapter. I would not advise to by a 130 dollar incomplete book. It was release in December of 2007 unprepared for people to use because it makes references to sites and files that don’t exist but are supposed to. Signed Cheated patron. I want my money back.

Review by lholt@rollins.edu:

I have used this book for the past 3 years in an undergraduate database design course. The book addresses the major issues associated with database design without obscuring topics with a lot of the underlying math/relational algebra details. The book serves well as a backdrop for the course material. Its use of MS Access for examples works well for the typical database designer/user. ‘Hardcore’ database students/professors/developers would probably want a more detailed treatment of the subject.

Review by KnottyFella:

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If you need a book for certification, this isn’t it….it is so much more than that.

This was the consensus choice of the faculty for the database foundations class when I taught information systems at university.

Of late, when I interview entry level database developers, I can tell whether or not they used this book or a recent version when they started to study database design. If they did not, they lack a comprehensive knowledge of the field. Those with the various certifications know enough about their specific application, but frequently, they can’t figure out problems that haven’t been covered by the certification training. Their conceptual knowledge rarely expands beyond their chosen application.

If you want a solid conceptual foundation of database design…this is your book.