Schaum's Outline of Fundamentals of Relational Databases [Paperback]

Ramon Mata-Toledo (Author), Pauline Cushman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2000 | ISBN-10: 007136188X | ISBN-13: 978-0071361880 | Edition: 1

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This Schaum's Outline gives you

• Practice problems with full explanations that reinforce knowledge
• Coverage of the most up-to-date developments in your course field
• In-depth review of practices and applications

Fully compatible with your classroom text, Schaum's highlights all the important facts you need to know. Use Schaum's to shorten your study time-and get your best test scores!

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

About the Author

Ramon Mata-Toledo (Harrisonburg, VA) is Associate Professor of Computer Science at James Madison University. Pauline Cushman, Ph.D. (Harrisonburg, VA) is Assistant Professor of Integrated Science and Technology and Computer Science.

Product Details

• Paperback: 249 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (November 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007136188X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071361880
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A very broad & not very useful overview, January 12, 2007

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Schaum's Outline of Fundamentals of Relational Databases (Paperback)

This outline is to broad and too shallow to be that useful. The outline tries to cover SQL, database theory, functional dependencies, normalization, database security, the entity relationship model, and throw in an MS Access example screen every now and then - all in just 250 brief pages. I hate to give the book two stars, because that usually indicates a book is pretty useless, but I feel I'd be a little too kind in giving it three stars too. My advice is to go with an introductory book like "Databases Demystified", and then get a book dedicated to SQL and learn that language separately. I prefer "Learning SQL", published by O'Reilly and Associates. If you want more advanced material on database theory after that, C.J. Date's book, "An Introduction to Database Systems", is a good one.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Concise and thorough intro to relational database concepts, May 4, 2001

By 

Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Schaum's Outline of Fundamentals of Relational Databases (Paperback)

This book is ideal for those of us who need to refresh knowledge and skills of relational databases that may have been unused for a few years, or for people who need to understand relational database concepts in a hurry.

It starts with concepts that are essential to understanding relational databases, then introduces you to SQL. If you are working with Oracle you will find that standard SQL and Oracle's SQL*Plus are quite different in that SQL*Plus has a richer set of verbs. Regardless, the intro to SQL is valuable and it provides you with the ability to write queries for real world needs. The examples will work with DB2, Oracle of any other database that will understand standard SQL, making this book product-independent and invaluable.

The sections that I especially liked covered normalization and entity-relationship models. These are basic knowledge factors that are essential to understanding relational databases, and are the heart and soul of the book.

This book's value is that it's straightforward and presents a lot of material in a short number of pages. It is not for non-technical people in my opinion because the writing is sparse and terse. However, if you have an understanding of data or want a fast refresh this book will save you time by cutting through the fluff.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Typos and omissions, July 21, 2004

By 

S. Padfield (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Schaum's Outline of Fundamentals of Relational Databases (Paperback)

This text is littered with typos. The narrative is dry and difficult to read; the authors seem to walk all over themselves trying to over-explain things rather than just taking the time to find the most concise and understandable way to say them. They use nonstandard symbols in their technical descriptions, and some symbols are simply not explained at all.

I am not very impressed with this book. I am basically skimming through it to pick up the basic concepts and I will explore them on my own without the help of this book.