| | |  | Software Engineering | Home » » » Database Systems: An Application-Oriented Approach, Introductory Version (2nd Edition) | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | This book presents the conceptual principles underlying the design and implementation of databases and their applications by providing a solid foundation of the theory underlying database systems. This book takes an applications-oriented approach to database concepts and covers topics including; ER Modeling, UML, XML, object-oriented databases, SQL, database tuning, and the important software issues that arise when implementing database applications. This book is appropriate for programmers who want to understand database system concepts and how they apply to real-world databases. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Michael Kifer | | Paperback:
| 688 pages | | Publisher:
| Addison Wesley | | Publication Date:
| April 09, 2004 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0321228383 | | Product Length:
| 0.94 inches | | Product Width:
| 0.76 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.13 inches | | Product Weight:
| 2.69 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.13 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.48 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.26 inches | | Package Weight:
| 2.69 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 7 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 7 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 UnreadableNov 30, 2005
By Chris
"Lifelong Student"
This may be one of the worst textbooks I have ever used. I have three specific complaints, any one of which would kill the book for me:
1. It defines the math and theory beneath relational databases, which is good. But it just leaves it at that. It would help greatly if an English explaination accompanied the definitions. For example, their definitions of the normal forms. Just about every other book and web site author seems to be able to come up with an understandable natural language description but not these guys. They just throw the math onto the wall and see what sticks.
2. Not enough examples. Don't just say something is so; show me how it is so.
3. The examples that do exist are pathetic. Not only are they oversimplified compared to the practice problems, they're physically impossible to follow. Here's an example from Chapter 6, Section 6.5.2, Page 208: "consider ... defined by the CREATE TABLE statement (4.1), page 87, and the schema ... defined by the SQL Statement (6.3), page 197. As discussed earlier ... represented by the FDs in (6.5), page 199." To follow just this one example, you have to simultaneously refer to 4 pages, spread over more than 100 pages. Good luck. Whoever edited this mess - or didn't - should be ashamed of themselves.
This book may be an ok reference for people who already know the stuff, but God help you if you are trying to learn from it. The instructor's slides are significantly better, but I would still give them no better than a B.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Waste of MoneyFeb 16, 2006
By Luke A. Bergen
While taking a databases course at college I found online documentation and tutorials to be more helpful and understandable. Very few examples and the examples given were impossible to follow. This book is more mathematical theory than anything else. Not recommended under any circumstances for anything more than a bonfire
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Boring and DryApr 20, 2006
By Kristian Erik Hermansen
Database Systems is probably the dullest subject I have encountered in Computer Science, and this book tends to exacerbate the problem. The authors fails to craft good examples, and if you are not already familiar with databases, you will be left behind by the authors' assumptions of your knowledge...
 Has some serious issuesApr 15, 2009
By A. Fine
"TriAnarchy"
While in my opinion it is one of the easier textbooks to read, it has some serious flows. Some of the definitions it gives are extremely vague. As a matter of fact the definition for a "database" that gives is bordering on being completely wrong. Obviously a serious issue for a textbook with that title. Let's just say no good professor will use this textbook for their class.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Solid book about physical database designJan 07, 2009
By Ada
This textbook was used in a graduate school database course and it is very informative and user-friendly. It goes through topics about physical and logical database design and is easy to follow.
See all 7 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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