Clear explanations of theory and design, broad coverage of models and real systems, and an up-to-date introduction to modern database technologies result in a leading introduction to database systems.

 

With fresh new problems and a new lab manual, students get more opportunities to practice the fundamentals of design and implementation. More real-world examples serve as engaging, practical illustrations of database concepts. The Fifth Edition maintains its coverage of the most popular database topics, including SQL, security, data mining, and contains a new chapter on web script programming for databases.

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It puts theory well ahead of practical matters, which gives the novice a good foundation from which to really get a firm handle on how all these pieces fit together. The assumption is that the student knows nothing, even B-trees are devoted several pages of explanation. The student who does know nothing will doubtless find this wealth of data to be overwhelming at first (as I did). But stick at it. This textbook is not for people looking at how to simply plug things into Microsoft Access. It's for programmers seriously looking to gain a strong background in what the fundamental elements of database components and systems are.

The text starts off simply, merely explaining in general terms what databases are and who will use them. Then we quickly move into modeling how relational databases work. Data Modeling and Entity-Relationship Models are described in-depth, and the book comes back to ER modeling and mapping repeatedly. Object Models are covered, as well as the best ways of sorting records and the best way to index tables. The authors offer a wealth of information concerning the SQL language -- so much so, that there's much that I simply haven't used since reading about it, although I'm sure that more advanced database programmers in the audience will find it very enlightening.

It continues on with Object-Oriented Database technologies, functional dependencies, and normal forms (first, second, third and Boyce-Codd normal form). Higher system views of database architecture are also discussed, giving us an understanding of how different parts are working together. Optimization, recovery, maintenance and security are naturally touched on, as are distributed databases and the basic client/server architecture relationship. As you can see, this is all very theoretical, although some real-life explanations and examples are brought in. But it is by building up a solid knowledge base that will allow the reader to truly understand systems when encountered in the classroom or in the workplace.

I've only touched on a handful of things that the book details in its 1000+ pages. It's packed with mathematical formulas, computer science algorithms, schema design, and the minutua of every database operation. Its approach doesn't make things easy, but it does contain everything you'd want to know about a given item. I had to read various sections multiple times for my coursework, obviously, but every time I studied a passage, I would uncover details and concepts that I had missed the last time. Even now as reference material, I always find myself learning (or relearning) something when consulting this book.

Although in my current job I don't require a massive amount of database knowledge, I still find this an extremely useful reference guide. To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I would find this text helpful if I hadn't taken a course that taught from it. It's certainly intimidating to a beginner. But if you're a moderate to intermediate database programmer, you'll find this an invaluable guide to filling in the gaps in your knowledge. It may be a bit too dense and scary to serve as your only teacher, but you'll probably find it an important one.

18 of 19 found the following review helpful:

Just the right amount of theoryDec 04, 1999
By RJ (rpoddar@iac.net)
This book has just the right mix of database theory and its practical applications. I've studied other books of the ilk and found that this book has a leg up on them in that it doesn't get too hung up on providing proofs for concepts that are either very intuitive or just not worth going into too detailed a proof for. It also provides a good review of "modern" database techniques like Object Oriented database, deductive databases, etc.

The book could use a little more polish in terms of grammatical correctness. Besides, in my opinion, some concepts, as explained in the book, are just plain wrong. There is no way for one to contact the authors for clarification either.

16 of 17 found the following review helpful:

Emphasizes database theory over practice.Nov 10, 1999
By Chuck Eby (ceby@fallschurch.esys.com)
If you are looking for a "How to" cookbook for a particular database or application, this is probably the wrong book for you. However, if you are looking for a in-depth discussion of the history and theory of database management systems, it would be hard to find a better book. The book would probably be best accompanying a college course on database theory, or for someone who wants to understand the theory overlying all DBMS systems. It is short on examples of specific applications, but does have valuable discussion of both Oracle 8 and Access 97.

Another nice feature of this book is that it has been recently updated and has much new information about object database theory. I have been studying this book with others, and we have joked about the copyright date of 2000 - hey we're reading next year's book!

17 of 19 found the following review helpful:

Useless for beginnersFeb 24, 2008
By Dwight Suzuki
Do you remember the 80's "Twilight Zone" episode where a man slowly loses his mind as the people around him start combining words in meaningless sentences, rendering him unable to understand anything in his native language?

That's how I felt while reading this book.

This was the suggested textbook for a course I took on database management systems. After the first chapter, this book rapidly became impossible to understand. Arcane terms are defined, redefined and concatenated in countless combinations, each with different shades of meaning. Concepts are introduced in the text without giving examples in the figures. Worse yet, the answers to the practice problems are not included in the back of the book. (Side note: this is the first time I have ever considered impersonating a college instructor in order to get the solutions manual from the publisher.)

As a supplement (or alternative) to this book, I'd recommend David Kroenke's "Database Concepts" (Prentice Hall, 2nd Edition), as well as C.J. Date's "Introduction to Database Systems" (Addison-Wesley, 6th Edition).

This book has helped kill any enthusiasm I might have had for working with databases. Thank you, Dr. Elmasri!

19 of 22 found the following review helpful:

Good on relational theory, poor on object orientationMay 17, 2000

We use this book in a theoretical relational database course at the University of Oslo. The book gives an in-depth introduction to databases. It attempts to cover object oriented databases as well as relational, but there are quite a few errors in those sections of the book. If your primary interests are OO, get another book. If you need the theoretical fundaments of relational databases then this book is for you!

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