Continuing in the eighth edition, An Introduction to Database Systems provides a comprehensive introduction to the now very large field of database systems by providing a solid grounding in the foundations of database technology while shedding some light on how the field is likely to develop in the future. This new edition has been rewritten and expanded to stay current with database system trends.

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I would no longer recommend the latest version as an introductory text. One gripe is Date's introduction of his own language "Tutorial-D" to explain and illustrate concepts. There is no one place in the book you can go to for a comprehensive description of Tutorial-D. Instead, snippets of it are peppered throughout the text. Another gripe: he can be long-winded and pedantic, and he uses phrases like "mutatis mutandi." I understand he is a man with a mission to be exacting and precise. But somehow, he seems to have overdone it in this edition.

The latest edition has many new chapters on object-relational, temporal databases, logic databases, and decision support systems. These are very convenient overviews, as always, filtered through Date's unerring and zealous devotion to the underlying relational theory.

I think if you already understand relational theory and you are a practitioner in the field, this is still a comprehensive "must have book." But if you are starting out, you will want a kinder-and-gentler introduction. The "love-it-or-hate-it" reviews seems to support this viewpoint.

I rated it 4 stars because (1) it is a classic (2) it is comprehensive (3) it is a reference work that any serious practitioner will want and (4) it has extensive and well-annotated references at the end of each chapter.

I withheld the 5th star for the gripes I mentioned above.

62 of 63 found the following review helpful:

Excellent, if textually dense ACADEMIC textbookNov 13, 1999
By David Gillies
(Note this review applies to the sixth edition of this book).

If you wish to quickly jump into database design without a full and rigorous knowledge of database theory (by no means a bad thing) then this book is not for you. If, however, you want a thorough grounding in the principles and practice of database theory considered from an academic standpoint, then this book is highly recommended.

Date is one of the giant figures of relational database theory, and this masterful work covers, in exhaustive detail, all the elementary principles of the subject. The book commences with an overview of database systems and management, before moving on to introduce the relational model. Part II of the book covers in great detail the relational model, introducing the relational algebra and the relational calculus (and then showing the formal equivalence of the two). The SQL language is introduced.

Part III discusses database design, with special emphasis on the vital topics of nonloss decomposition, functional dependencies and normalisation. For practical database designers this is perhaps the most valuable part of the book. Part IV covers data protection from the standpoints of integrity and implementation in practical systems.

Part V gathers a miscellany of related topics such as optimization of queries, a discussion of the 'NULL' problem and an introduction to ditributed (i.e. client/server) database systems. Part VI is an introduction to object-oriented database systems, with an examination of the problems faced by traditional relational systems when faced with object-oriented problems.

It is important to note the target audience for this book. This book is first and foremost academic by nature. Rigour is not sacrificed for conciseness or simplicity. It is textually dense, especially parts II and III (far and away the most important parts). The reader will have to put in a lot of work to fully grasp the details of the concepts. For example, Date's definition of third normal form (3NF): "A relation is in 3NF if and only if it is in 2NF and every nonkey attribute is nontransitively dependent on the primary key". To appreciate in detail the significance of this definition requires substantial effort. However, this effort will pay dividends when the time comes to actually design a real-world system. Failure to understand the principles of database theory at this level of rigour lies behind many failed implementation attempts. Not every database designer needs this knowledge, but a manager of a large database project certainly does. I would not recommend this book as an introductory text for an undergraduate course in database design, due to the large quantity of material covered and its highly theoretical exposition. I would, however, strongly recommend it for students at a higher level, professional database designers and implementors of database management systems.

39 of 40 found the following review helpful:

An indispensible text for serious practionersNov 23, 2003
By Willie the Shake "synthus"
This is not a how-to, it is a how-to-understand. I own multiple editions of this book starting with the 3rd, when many of the examples referred to RBase. It won't tell you, with simple color diagrams and cut-and-paste examples, how to optimize your Oracle SQL queries or tune your DB/2 engine, but it will teach you the underlying principles of relational databases, from which the serious professional will be able to extrapolate. If you have the intelligence and stomach for it and you actually read it, it will serve you much better than the SQL in 24 hours picture books that some reviewers seem to be looking for -- it is a timeless and effective conceptual work on the subject that spans the evolution of commercial product implementations. Dilitantes and desperadoes, head for the Dummies aisle -- this one's not for you.

22 of 23 found the following review helpful:

An Introduction for Software Engineers, not UsersSep 10, 2003
By rycamor "rycamor"
Sorry, no full-color graphics, and no included disk full of fill-in-the-blank examples and wizards to build your contact list. This is an old-fashioned academic tome, not a how-to book or thinly-disguised marketing tool for some commercial database system.

I suppose the biggest criticism I could make of this book is that it overestimates the target audience. Unfortunately, many who see the title of this book assume that it will teach them how to work with current database products such as Oracle, or maybe SQL Server and Access. No, this book doesn't show you how to create an invoicing system for your bicycle shop, or a web content management system. What it will show you is the conceptual underpinning of the relational data model, how to understand relational database systems in general (not everything is SQL, you know), and provide some heavy insight into how relational databases should be designed.

In that sense, it can be considered an "introductory" book for software engineers, who might themselves create a new database management system. It can also be considered introductory for database administrators and systems programmers who are looking to expand their knowledge beyond the product-specific practical methods they have been exposed to. In other words, if you just want to know "how things are done" in your industry, don't read this book. If you want some insights into how things COULD be done much better, you might want to read this book.

So, while I might not recommend this book to a junior programmer tasked with creating his/her first web-based ordering system, I might recommend it to the company DBA or systems architect. Even more, I would recommend this book to anyone studying C/C++, and looking to start a career in software engineering, possibly to help create new database systems. This book doesn't discuss specific implementation in C++ or anything like that but it provides an excellent target feature set and language spec for development, as well as a clarification of the formal logic behind relational database management.

30 of 33 found the following review helpful:

An EXCELLENT theoretical treatmentDec 09, 1999
By Hennie Potgieter
An introduction to Database systems is an excellent work and to call this work an introduction is misleading (Date explains in the preface why he chose to call it an introduction). The work is theoretically extremely dense and it requires a lot of effort to fully understand all the concepts that Date treats really exhaustively throughout the book. The book gives in-depth insight into database design concepts and it breaks every term and concept down to the bone.

The style in wich the book is written makes for pleasant reading and Date's use of the English language is brilliant. Date is certainly a master of database theory and I can recommend this book to everybody who is serious about the underlying concepts of the relational database model. As an academical textbook - this book is not intended for undergraduate study but for post-graduate study it is a winner.

If there is one thing that I can complain about it is that the book sheds too few light on the theory of database optimization. I hope that the 8th Ed. will also cover this topic more extensively.

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