Customer Reviews

The Data Modeling Handbook : A Best-Practice Approach to Building Quality Data Models

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have many books on data modeling but this one is probably the most understandable. The examples are well-formed and many diagrams are provided along with written explanations. They do an excellent job of going through 5th normal form and show how to resolve many different issues such as special cases in generalization hierarchies. I have found this book very useful in practice and it has served me well.

This book is excellent. The subject matter is advanced but still easy to read and understand. The examples used in the book are varied and excellent illustrations of the problems discussed in the book. Many of the examples remind me of similar data modeling errors I have seen in my experience and give excellent methods of correcting the mistakes. I highly reccomend this book for the data modeler who is ready to go to the more advanced conecpts. (You must know basic data modeling concepts to understand this book, such as how to read diagrams, basic terminology, etc.)

This book is really a "no-nonsense guide" for data modeller. However the diagram conventions are significantly different than found on some of the popular CASE tools. But overall I keep refering to this book.

The authors deny the fifth normal form and state special-case rules as if they were universal. Examples: Eliminate triads; Two entities cannot have more than one relationship. Although in some specific situations the advice might be valid, anyone who is trying to learn from the reading will be misled. Less harmful, even interesting, for a professor (to learn how not to approach the teaching of DB modeling).

Poor, underdocumented examples. Oversimplification. Unfortunately at the time I had only the title to choose from. Good thing most books now have a table of contents.

Database modeling still doesn't have strong references as database theory does (Date's, Ramakrishnan's, Elmasri's only to cite three). There are excellent theoretical (Thalheim's "Entity-Relationship Modeling" is good) and philosophical approaches (finally they re-published Kent's opera-prima "Data and Reality", fabulous).

The picture is poor when it comes to hands-on modeling. Bruce's "Designing Quality Databases..." is an exception. Good and useful for someone who is developing modeling expertise. But I especially don't recommend Reingruber&Gregory's book.

When I had to create my first data model for an entire system, I instructed myself with this book and "Data Modeling For Information Professionals" by Bob Schmidt. Schmidt's book provided the theory, and this book provided the implementation rules and guidelines. I think the attribute rules probably helped me the most. The hierarchy rules, which were written in a way that I could relate to from an object-oriented perspective, were probably the next most helpful for me. I especially appreciated that the book's modeling notation matched the modeling tool I was using (Martin notation, with rectangular boxes, solid lines, little circles, hash marks and crow's feet, as opposed to something more UML-like with rounded boxes, dashed lines, little diamonds, and black balls.)

The database I created with this book's help is still going strong. It's robust, flexible and extensible, in large part due to the wisdom I received from this book.

This book is about as much fun to read as a book about differential equations. Good concepts, but the context is very dry and puts me to sleep. I've been in the industry for several years, and I bought this book as a reference. But I find myself cringing every time I need to use it.

This book oversimplifies the examples and expects a leap of faith to truly understand the information engineering technique of data modeling.

May be good in the class room; but in actual practice there are much better references available such as Silverston, Inmon, Kimball, and of course the Zachman framework.

Anyone that has been modeling very long will see this book for what it is ... after you look at it once, you'll put it on your bookshelf and leave it there. Save yourself the money ... There are much better reference books available. Try David Hay's book on patterns, or Len Silverston, or Graeme Simsion. Check out the DAMA reference guide .. at least it's built by actual practitioners.

The help screens on the Data modeling tools are more advanced in explaining data modeling than this book.

Probably great for theorists - managers or teachers that don't know what they are doing! But the real modelers will seek help elsewhere.

The subtitle is both an accurate and concise summary - and typical of the rest of the book. "A best practice approach to build quality data models"

Now if they extended it to warehousing and corporate information factories...Not much into rambling, the authors take a realistic approach to modeling. Probably a good course book.