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books/blogs on database design?

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rjbull:
I heard - from an article in the computing section of the paper, I think - that the following is "the one." The details are those from our county library record.


Author    Date, C. J., Christopher John 1941-
Title    Database systems
Publisher    Addison-Wesley
Price    £27.99
Summary    Covers the whole spectrum of opportunity from design to retail, from fashion journalism to modelling. Fully updated 5th edition.
Contents    (Each Chapter begins with an Introduction and concludes with a Summary, and each Appendix begins with an Introduction): I. PRELIMINARIES 1. An Overview of Database Management 2. Database System Architecture 3. An Introduction to Relational Databases 4. An Introduction to SQL II. THE RELATIONAL MODEL 5. Domains, Relations, and Base Relvars 6. Relational Algebra 7. Relational Calculus 8. Integrity 9. Views III. DATABASE DESIGN 10. Functional Dependencies 11. Further Normalization I: 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF 12. Further Normalization II: Higher Normal Forms 13. Semantic Modeling IV. TRANSACTION MANAGEMENT 14. Recovery 15. Concurrency V. FURTHER TOPICS 16. Security 17. Optimization 18. Missing Information 19. Type Inheritance 20. Distributed Databases 21. Decision Support 22. Temporal Databases 23. Logic-Based Databases VI. OBJECT AND OBJECT/RELATIONAL DATABASES 24. Object Databases 25. Object/Relational Databases Appendix A: SQL Expressions Appendix B: An Overview of SQL3 Appendix C: Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Symbols
Description    For over 25 years, C. J. Dates An Introduction to Database Systems has been the authoritative resource for readers interested in gaining insight into and understanding of the principles of database systems. This exciting revision continues to provide a solid grounding in the foundations of database technology and to provide some ideas as to how the field is likely to develop in the future. The material is organized into six major parts. Part I provides a broad introduction to the concepts of database systems in general and relational systems in particular. Part II consists of a careful description of the relational model, which is the theoretical foundation for the database field as a whole. Part III discusses the general theory of database design. Part IV is concerned with transaction management. Part V shows how relational concepts are relevant to a variety of further aspects of database technology-security, distributed databases, temporal data, decision support, and so on. Finally, Part VI describes the impact of object technology on database systems.

Amazon UK link:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201684195/virtuallibrar-21


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urlwolf:
Thanks rjbull, that definitely sounds like a good book.

Lashiec:
That book is a classic, and the recommended one of the whole bibliography we use at Database Design in my college.

iphigenie:
It really depends on your level and your aim - there are very different aims in an academic textbook and a learning book for the pragmatic practitioner

The best is to indeed take the time to learn the theory, then learn the ins and outs and quirks of real world practice - which imply to throw out the window half the theory because real databases dont work that way, there are performance concerns and simply if you want to write something that is easy to write and maintain

I still recommend "SQL for Smarties" or "Database in Depth" which is by the same C Date as the textbook above but oriented at practitioners rather than at a 2 semester course for undergraduates

patthecat:
The topic you should be searching for is the term "data warehousing" or "data modelling".  Data warehousing and data modelling is all about getting the proper database design (cases when you should "normalize" or not, when to split data into different relational table, etc) as opposed to the technical aspects and implementations of a specific RDBMS.

Search amazon for "data warehouse" and you'll see books by Ralph Kimball - the "father of data warehousing".  I like his books since it really focuses on "real world" data modelling cases.  Other database books either give too much overview/theory or too specific in the technical operations of a specific database system.

patrick

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