Customer Reviews

First Course in Database Systems, A (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was the text used for my first course in databases several years ago. It is written in plain english and I find that to be one of its primary strengths as it is geared towards people with no experience at all with databases.

This book, along with the online resources, has been a very valuable resource to me. This book is exactly what I have been looking for and was afraid did not exist. The book was quite readable and the examples helped explain some of the more difficult concepts. All in all, it made databases seem simple

When I saw that Jeffrey Ullman had a new Database text out I was excited, since my work focus has now moved into that area. I have read and learned from many of Ullman's books, such as the famous Dragon (compiler design) book, as well as the "White" (automata) book and his two texts on computer algorithms. These are classics and should be on the bookshelf of everyone who calls him/herself a computer scientist.

This book is, however, a little disappointing. Most of it is good, some of it very good. But I do find some flaws in it. One of the glaring flaws deals with the attempt to extend the relational model from sets to bags (basically, to allow for duplicate tuples in relations.) This is the best attempt I've seen at formalizing "bag theory", but it introduces problems (some minor, others very serious) that aren't mentioned in the text. This review is too short and not the right place to expound on these problems. Chris Date's database text goes into most of them in substantial detail.

In summary, this book is good, with many good examples. I find it very readable. But it is not as good as Chris Date's Intro to Database Systems for the serious database professional. Ullman's book is good for showing another perspective to Date's solid (but somewhat opinionated) treatment of relational database theory.

There is a reason the used price for this book hews so closely to the list price: the book is a high-quality piece that is extraordinarily well written and easy to follow as well as deeply imbued with a great deal of information.

I currently have three titles in my list of "all-time great Computer Science books" -- from the selectivity it should be clear how difficult it is to earn a spot on said list -- and this is the third book on it (in order of date read, not quality). The other two are Patterson & Hennessy's Computer Organization and Design and W. Richard Stevens's TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1.

I was not particularly interested in databases -- the subdiscipline -- prior to taking the course for which I purchased this book. I must say though that the combination of straight-forward descriptions and easy to quickly grasp examples makes this topic ever more accessible.

The canonical examples provided -- consistent throughout and extended as new topics are broached -- as well as the relaxed yet careful language utilized throughout make this book a solid and worthwhile investment. More of an investment than the book itself (any book), though, is the time spent reading it. I was careful to read the book extraordinarily thoroughly -- even short snippets underneath examples and what have you -- and every time in doing so I was rewarded for this extra investment of time with enhanced knowledge and understanding. There is very little that is superfluous in this book yet at the same time every description is adroit; no description leaves you wondering about some aspect or another: the book is exceedingly thorough.

The book is excellent for beginners in the field of Databases. SQL is covered very good. The examples, (based on beer, bars, sells, drinkers, likes and ...) are also very good (although I do not like beer or alcohol in particular), explained in detail and the students understand them very well.
I am using it for the English speaking group of computer science at our University, and so far (we have covered almost half of the book), everything is going rather well. Thank you Mr.Ullman.

I bought this book to refresh my DB knowledge learnt during university years. Chapter 1-5 has made an excellent description regarding the theory and DB design principles. The examples are crystal clear, and more importantly, they are very concise and to the point unlike many other DB books that are very wordy. However, this book failed to introduce many basic terms and concepts such as surrogate keys, candidate keys, 1NF, 2NF etc.

Starting from Chapter 6 till chapter 10, it focuses on SQL. This portion seems to be an SQL reference manual rather than a college level course book. The SQL grammar and usage are explained very well. But the academic and practical discussions on the advantages, benefits of Views, Stored Procedures etc are missing. These topics I believe are very fundamental to the DB users. I end up reading other two books "Fundamentals of Database Systems" and "Introduction to database systems" to complement this book. Additionally, when discussing Index, the author does not explain the potential underlying structures for better usage of index. I understand that the author's complete book might contain details on indexing. However, simply from a DB user perspective, it will still be helpful to learn the basics of index internals as a first course on DB.

All in all, this book is a good introductory book though lacks some basic concepts and fundamental coverage. Based on the content and book price comparing with other DB books, I rank this book 3.5 star.

Due to cost considerations, I purchased an older edition. The book is, for the most part, clearly written. Occasionally, the writing is somewhat stiff and academic, but not unusually so. The book may be overkill for someone who needs only a surface treatment of the subject matter, but if you truly intend to work in this area, you are likely to find this text valuable.

I'm taking a Database class right now. I'm using this book as another reference besides the required textbook and found out that this book is very clear in explaining things. Worth every penny !

I read the whole entire book and found it to be helpful in understanding the subject of Databases. It uses running examples to explain different concepts. However I did find many grammatical errors and I think some subjects could have been explained better like Weak entities and Normal forms.

I have read several database textbooks and have yet to find one that breaks from the "dry but informative" mold. This book was no exception. However, there are plenty of diagrams to help hammer in the abstract concepts of database design.