Re: What is The Current Definitive Book for Database

Andrew Mobbs wrote:

> Sted Alana <Sted_Alana_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> What Is The Current Definitive Book for Database Systems?
> >
> >
> >>Two books to read are:
> >
> > >"An Introduction to Database Systems" C.J. Date
> > >Addison Wesley; ISBN: 0201684195
> >
> >An introduction? that doesnt sound very definitive.
>
> This is "An Introduction" in the academic publishing tradition, where
> the simpler the book title, the more detailed the contents. Be very
> afraid of "An elementary introduction to the principles of ..." :-)
>
> >>"Transaction Processing" Jim Gray, Andreas Reuter
> >> Morgan Kaufmann; ISBN: 1558601902
> >
> >This seems to be very specific, but thanks for your suggestion.
>
> It gives excellent coverage of the underlying technology, how
> transactions work, why they're needed, how they're implemented etc.
>
> It's not as important as Date if you're only concerned with the high-level
> design of a database system. However, if you have to work with DBMSes
> at all levels, I'm a great believer in understanding the fundamentals
> of a system to understand the high level effects.
>
> (As an example, you see a "latch wait" in Oracle. You can either follow
> a cook-book tuning recipe; or you can try to work out what the latch is
> for, why it's being used, what is contending for it, and then work on
> what to do about it. The former is easier, the latter works.)
>
> >I ask this question because there are so many database books out there,
> >which makes it difficult to decide which one purchase. Surely, there must be
> >a definitive book for database where all serious database employees/managers
> >should own.
>
> Yes, Date.
>
> --
> Andrew Mobbs - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~andrewm/

Amen.

High on my list of examples are:

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics and Introduction to Electrodynamics.

Either could be renamed to Introduction to Painful Headaches.

Daniel Morgan Received on Thu May 16 2002 - 12:34:17 CDT