Customer Reviews

An Advanced Course in Database Systems: Beyond Relational Databases

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent book for beginners to understand the important concepts in relational, object relational and oo databases. ER,UML and XML are introduced and used at an appropriate level, as well as SQL and ODMG standard. A rich set of examples are given and they are easy to understand. I especially like the case study chapter which gives very detailed application design on relational and or using oracle, and oo using Objectivity. The book website is great source for example details and other sources related to the topic. Overall, it's a great book on relational, or and oo databases with detailed examples to assit gaining hands-on experiences.

Before I read this book, I only know something about relational db and ER modeling. This book tells me a lot beyond that including UML modeling, XML, Object-oriented db, and some advanced SQL features etc. Compared with other similar books, this book presents these techniques very clearly and it provides a lot of figures and examples, so it's very easy to follow.

I honestly don't know how they can seriously think this book is worth the asking price, I wouldn't waste the time on it if it were free. The only reason I bought it was because it was a requirement for a course I was taking, that is most likely the only way they will ever sell many copies. It is inconsistent in many places, none of the examples (what few there are) flow together in a consistent manner. Many topics are barely touched on, with no real detail and many with no examples that make sense. I have never reviewed a book before, but felt compelled to do so in this case. This is absolutely the worst experience I have ever had with a book. For the life of me, I can't figure out how any school/professor that even glanced through this book would select it as a required text. Perhaps they get kickbacks? ;-)