Beginning Database Design: From Novice to Professional (Paperback)

~ Clare Churcher (Author)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Beginning Database Design: From Novice to Professional provides short, easy-to-read explanations of how to get database design right the first time. This book offers numerous examples to help you avoid the many pitfalls that entrap new and not-so-new database designers. Through the help of use cases and class diagrams modeled in the UML, youll learn how to discover and represent the details and scope of the problem in question.

Database design is not an exact science, and solid database design principles and examples help demonstrate the consequences of simplifications and pragmatic decisions. The rationale is to try to keep it simple, but allow room for development as situations change or resources permit. The book also features an introduction for implementing the final design in a relational database.

About the Author

Clare Churcher holds a Ph.D. in physics and has designed several databases for a variety of large and small projects. She is currently the head of the applied computing group at Lincoln University where her teaching has included analysis and design, database, and programming. She has supervised over 70 undergraduate projects designing databases for small projects.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st ed. 2007. Corr. 2nd printing edition (January 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590597699
• ISBN-13: 978-1590597699
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #74,788 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #10 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Databases > Beginning & Introductory
  #16 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Structured Design
  #38 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Databases > Database Design

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Introductory Database Design Book I Could Find, June 17, 2007

By	Bjorn D. Tyreus - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While having many years of object-oriented design and programming experience, until recently I had no experience in designing or implementing relational databases. I learn by reading so I picked up several of the top-rated books on the subject. I found Clare Churcher's book to be the best by far! There are two aspects of the book I found particularly attractive. First, it is short and to the point. You can read it in a day or two and learn enough of the essentials to get started on your first database design project, I did. Second, it clearly demonstrates the relationship between object-oriented data modeling and relational database design. The latter aspect made the concepts and examples particularly easy for me to understand and I suspect it will do the same for anyone else reading this book with an object-oriented programming background. Simply a great book!

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent introduction to database design, November 8, 2007

By	K. Pate "kenny_in_sjc" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book does a great job of explaining data modeling, including how it corresponds to tables in a database. The book is well-written and very organized, and the examples do a good job of illustrating the concepts. It's also mercifully short compared to other options.

It's appropriate for database beginners, and for experiences developers who are getting into database design for the first time. There's a section on how this all relates to OOP, with no focus on a specific language.

The examples apply to any database systems that support standard SQL including Access and MySQL. Note that the book does not cover Access and MySQL directly -- you'll need different resources for that. For MySQL, the tutorials on the MySQL site itself are a surprisingly good place to start.

This book tells you how to think about your database *before* you begin to develop it, which can be critical if you're designing anything even slightly complicated.

I'm developing a Ruby on Rails web app, and this book really helped me think through some issues that I had not considered until now.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Introduction For a Beginner, January 24, 2007

By	J. Annuzzi "db designer" (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been looking for a practical yet easy to read book on relational database design and I wish I had this book when I started to read up on the subject. This book is a pleasure to read, and the author is definately an expert in the domain. This book will act as a guide during your design decisions and will give you pointers on how to get the design right the first time, helping you avoid painful reworks and mistakes.

If you are new to the subject, and would like to learn more, or even if you are experienced, this book gets down to the basics of what it is you are trying to model, and teaches the steps you can take on how to do it.

The book is short, sweet, to the point, and will get you modeling databases right in no time.