Database Modeling & Design

Author: Toby Teorey List Price: $49.95 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 1558605002 Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (15 January, 1999) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 35,296 Average Customer Rating: 3.7 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

Alot of database design is common sense. When looking through most DB books, this common sense understanding of database design is blocked by jargon loaded walls of words.

Excerpted example of befuddled writing:
"Analyze redundant relationships carefully. Two or more relationships that are used to represent the same concept are considered to be redundant. Redundant relationships are more likely to result in unnormalized tables when transforming the ER model into relational schemas. Note that two or more relationships are allowed between the same two entities as long as the two relationships have different meanings. In this case they are not considered redundant." (page. 50, 3rd ed.)

That was an example of the paragraphs that wastes my time, and irks me to want to tear my hair out. Shall we posit that: 'the expository text therein displayed above for the reader is an example of the endemic pomposity of academic writing that conveys ideas in a form that is far from concise; nay, in fact in a form that is too wordy.' Or am I being redundant?

I have no wish to be too harsh, it does have some valuable DB knowledge at an academic level. It is to be lauded for being a computer book on a substantial topic weighing under 400 pages. But please: to DB & academic writers out there -- drop the pretension, and cut down on your verbiage, and get to the point in a plainly said style.

[The ratio of : (words of Jargon)/(practical information conveyed) = the average overcharge submitted by the job title in question, and the artificiality of the barrier to becoming a competing member of that profession.]

The GOOD: Chapters 1-5 are done well. The book does a good job of introducing the reader to the Entity-Relationship(ER) model approach using the Chen notation and its extensions. It also does a good job explaining how ER modeling can be applied to a database life cycle, in particular, requirements analysis, conceptual and logical modeling. Also, the transformation of the ER model elements to SQL constructs and the process of DB normalization are explained well. The "real-life" case study helps with the explanations. The book provides an extensive list of literary references.

The BAD: From Chapter 6 and on. It started reading like an academic literature review of all advanced database related topics like Data warehousing (DW), Object-Relation DB(ORDB), and Object-Oriented DB (OODB), OLAP. The topics were covered in a cursory manner and then the reader is directed to the referred reading list for more information. Also, the book becomes much more academic on how the DBMS deals with the physical elements like access methods, indexes, data allocation, execution times, etc. These topics are way to technical for the novice DB user. The book does not really provide any real in-depth informaton on DB modeling and design for the other DB structures/tools discussed (DW,ORDB,OODB,OLAP).

CONCLUSION: The primary reason for the "2 stars" is the misleading commentary that this book would be useful to the novice designer. This book is not for a DB novice, but for intermediate-advanced DBA/Architect/Modeler. Overall, I found the book tries to cover too many topics and in the process diluting all the topics. Leaving the reader with the feeling of not really learning that much. If you are an intermediate-advanced DB user then I can see the book being useful in providing a roadmap to the DB literature while providing a basic introduction. Books of this nature should not try to tap both sides of the experience spectrum; pick one and then stick to that level.

The exercises were useful and informative, and the author presents the material in a concise and clear way, free of typographical silliness or excessive personal familiarity, neither of which would contribute in any way to the material. The style is, roughly, 10% textbook, 90% cookbook.

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