Customer Reviews

Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management

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

 

 

I'm a technical person but have very little DB experience and purchased the book because I had to for a college class. I feel the book was simply OK. Some points were made well others I had to read several times. Over all the explanations were not as concise as I would like but in all fairness DB concepts are hard to explain. The overall layout was good however I think there should have been more attention during the intro to familiarize the reader with DB's and the related concepts before delving in to the details of each phase of DB creation.

My only real gripe is that a new revision is published every year and the previous version of the $100 + dollar book becomes worthless. To save money I bought the previous version and found all the material I needed. However for the final exam the instructor of the online class gave us page numbers to use as reference so I was forced to buy the latest version which was the same book with a few new references...

If you are buying this book for reference or if you are buying this because you are taking a face to face class I recommend that you buy the previous version required by the instructor at a greatly reduced cost. You may be able to do this w/ an online class if the professor (or classmates) are flexible and willing to help reconcile the different page numbers.

Book does not come with the student content that it is suppose to come with. It is supposed to come with online appendices A though L and downloads for files used in each chapter. I would not advise to by a 130 dollar incomplete book. It was release in December of 2007 unprepared for people to use because it makes references to sites and files that don't exist but are supposed to. Signed Cheated patron. I want my money back.

I bought this book to use for an online class. This book is one of the worst text books I have ever had to use. It fails at explaining important concepts (especially normalization). If you must use this book, go ahead and order some other material because this book will do nothing but confuse you.

Overall the book was simply ok. I found that it was not an introductory book as some concepts required prior knowledge of databases. Some of the students that were in the class simply just quit but they were unable to understand the material. Luckily for me I've dealt with DB's before so some things were not new to me but others were. Levels of Normalization was an interesting chapter but left alot to be desired, it was required for class but I probably go with something else if I had a choice.

The authors have no understanding of the relational model. The book is devoid of fundamental concepts and principles, and present a misleading view of the purpose and value of database systems.

This book will teach you entity relationship modeling and diagrams. Databases are viewed as an entity store, while database management systems are treated as no more than record managers and query processors. Keys are misunderstood. Normalization is quickly glossed over. The book is an accurate reflection of the common misconceptions and mistakes in databases.

Many chapters deviate from their intended purpose. Indexing is discussed as part of the relational model. The normalization chapter focuses on designing and improving entities. Many pages are devoted to DBMS internals which beginners don't need to know.

The best thing about the book is the visual design and layout and the production quality. It is neat and aesthetically pleasing, with good use of color and contrast. It is well bound on good paper and neatly cut. Chapter markers against the edge of the page are visible when the book is closed, allowing for quick location. Chapters are introduced with an overview and ended with key terms, further reading, review questions, and exercise problems. The obligatory table of contents and index are simple and comprehensive.

Summary and verdict: a waste of time.

The online content is finally up, but that's still the stupid part about it. It comes with a sleave in the back to fit a CD, they should've just waited and released the content with the book. It's very annoying to have to log in and find this crap all the time.

Another thing, as a student, I hate how much this book wants you to keep drawing ERDs! Relationships are not that hard to understand, we don't need to keep drawing ten diagrams each chapter. It's even worse for students that are required to turn in digital copies for assignments, because that means you should probably already have Visio and the understanding of how to use it. Maybe if they wrote a preface chapter on some Visio basics of how to make ERDs look like theirs would help some.

I'm not at all impressed with this book.

Thank you.

This book's condition is quite good. but it didn't have the access code that might be printed in the book.

This book is very well structured. The first six chapters deals with basic data design concepts and implementation planning. The following chapters introduces SQL commands and Oracle commands. At the end of the reading, I feel the need to re-read the text in order to position my knowledge as an expert. One key failure of the book is their online content and student website has nothing to offer. The website has some good tutorials which will enable one to understand SQL.

Great Book, great information. I thought I knew something about databases having worked with them for 7 years. This book open my mind to the theories and the beginnings that need to take place before trying to make a database in a software. Very helpful and easy read book.

I purchased this book for use with an on-line college class. Unfortunately, the book was the major source of information for the class. I wound up having to Google topics for additional information and even wound up purchasing additional books just to complete the assignments. The main problem is, it is a typical text book.... So very long, convoluted, verbose descriptions of what should be easy topics... i.e. after looking up information from outside sources, I re-read the book and thought: "Man they could have made this soooo much easier if they would have just explained it like some of the FREE information I found on the interenet!!!"

The additional material that is available for download is simply material that SHOULD have been included in the book in the first place... For 100 plus dollars, the least these cheepo's could have done was to print out the additional information for you!!!

So I would say if you normally find typical college text books to be "very useful" and "informative" you might be fine with this one... Otherwise, if you're not in a class with a good instructor, you're going to have some problems with this book...