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Relational Database Design Clearly Explained, Second Edition
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Author: Jan Harrington
List Price: $39.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1558608206
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (16 April, 2002)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 370,192
Average Customer Rating: 3.68 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 3 out of 5
Clearly mixed reviews
I have to give this book a very mixed review. As many reviewers pointed out, there were some errors at key points, which muddied things up for someone new to databases. There were a few places where pages were added with little value; I really didn't need to see 6 pages of the "Mighy-Mite motors product catalog", the 20 pages of SQL CREATE TABLE statements, or even the chapter on CASE tools. On the positive side, I appreciated the discussion of normalization, as well as "Codd's Rules". For those who have used keys packed with information, the section on "Avoiding meaningful primary keys" was useful. I appreciated the cursory mention of data flow diagrams; as I often think that database designers and database application developers would benefit from using these techniques to communicate the intersection of tables and process. I would have appreciated including this in the case studies. The case studies were thought provoking, and brought home some of the problems about many-to-many relationships.
Rating: 2 out of 5
beginner oriented
Clearly a beginner's text. Positive in that it does mention object-relational design. Can be read in a day but contents are not substantial enough in my opinion. Somewhat disappointed in Morgan Kaufmann for publishing this work. Teorey's volume I'd prefer.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Error-prone and academically obfuscated
It is typical in DB texts to error in the examples, such as to assume all phone numbers only need 7 INTs (we all live in the same area code, and country, right?) However, in this book there are so many serious inaccuracies that I found myself doubting all of the information presented. A quick example, pp4 on page 24 and again on pp2 page 25, on "one-to-many" relationships, "Other many-to-many relationships include that between a child and her biological mother." Uh, is she talking multiple embryonic transplants?The information that *is* explained correctly is explained in a baffling, overly academic manner. For example, in explaining one-to-one relationships, "If we have two instances of two entities (A and B) called Ai and Bi, then a one-to-one relationship exists if at all times Ai is related to no instances of entity B and Bi is related to no instances of entity A or one instance of entity A." Right... way to painfully obfuscate a self-explanatory concept. The author makes assertions, promising to back them up further in the book, and then never does so. She goes on to build additional conceptual elements based on these unsubstantiated assertions. You'll find yourself both distrusting the assertions, due to the numerous errors, but required to "believe" just to get to the next concept. All around awful attempt.
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