Win by Beginning Database Design with Gavin Powell
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Gavin's textbook on Beginning Database Design takes you from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds...or 60 to 120 in 1 second...it's for the Novice to get started right or for the Seasoned Database Programmer to revisit the fundamentals...
A must have for Program or Project Managers who need to know what the heck their programmers are up to...
A Not So Good Beginning
As the title states Beginning Database Design is aimed at people new to database design. The book does a reasonable job introducing this topic but has a fair number of problems.
What I liked:
- Good coverage of the basics - datatypes, ERD, keys, SQL, indexes, normalization, denormalization.
- Exercises at the end of most chapters.
- A case study for an online auction house.
What I disliked:
- The first two chapters can be skipped unless you are completely new to databases.
- The same information is repeated throughout the book sometimes within the same paragraph. While this can be an aid in helping people to learn a new topic it gets old fast.
- Some strange turns of phrase and typographic errors that required me to re-read sections of the book a few times before I understood what the author was saying.
- Not enough exercises.
Overall, a fair introduction whose effect is reduced by repetition and poor writing/editing.
Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the book for review.
Quite a valuable read!
That which i found very useful about this book, was the ability it bestows on one to take/translate an abstract, ordinary typical user sentence like: "we don't want customer orders to be bookable to our website and thereby representing for us a negative quantity value against our stock inventory,if the quantity we have left in stock for the item is actually zero"
and translate it straight into the SQL implementation equivalent. for example: using a table definition to define restrictions to a single quantity-in-stock column , as well as a table check-constraint requiring (quantity-required to be less than , or be the same as, the amount of the quantity-in-stock), one possible SQL implementation equivalent of the user sentence could be shown in T-SQL as:
CREATE TABLE ProductOrderLine
(ProductLineKey....BigInt....,
OrderMatchKey.....BigInt....,
ProductOrdered....Char(6)..,
QuantityInStock....BigInt....,
...CONSTRAINT NonNegativeStockValue CHECK (QuantityInStock >= 0)
QtyRequired.......BigInt......,
...CONSTRAINT CK_QuantityOrdered CHECK (QtyRequired <= QuantityInStock))
In short, Beginning Database Design by Wrox, gives one a useful,solid level of clarity/handle in grasping this direct relationship between your understanding of the business rules and user requirements for the database system and the direct SQL translation of this into SQL code implemention.
understanding the problem matter right from the jump, when you are conducting user interviews, is invaluable in order to revise, better gather/factor-in users perpectives/expectations for what the system should do for them / will help them solve in their individual daily business tasks
The Results: lots of very satisfied customers; resulting from your proficiency in mapping/translating fluently between abstractions ie :ERD's et cetera and their SQL implementation.
This book reminds me of another one in the same sort of carriage, also using this same paradigm ie: translating from trite clue-sentences, directly into the SQL code implementation equivalent.
That other book was titled: [Data Management : Databases & Organizations] and it has for ISBN: 0471715360
Beginning db design by wrox can bring to you -(if you start your database design study trek here, plus, understand and practise designing databases at this level), a shorter transition to mastering design & implementation of databases.
The concepts discussed ie: business rules & their direct implementation, reverse-engineering/backtracking -(denormalizing) a db design ,OLTP ,datawarehouse and OLAP database modelling, A study of The Database Objects (you'll use in your implementations) viz: sprocs -(a.k.a: stored Procedures) ,triggers,functions,views,indexes,
& other necessary concepts such as: B-trees,Hash tables, Hash keys, Replication, RAID arrays, clusters & partitioning
are in my view critical to producing solid , detailed, database designs & to the construction of effective database systems.
from an overarching performance perspective, a well designed database is only second in importance to operating system considerations, -(if you go by the 'Pyramid of Performance' as described in page220 of 'Portable DBA' by Bersinic & Giles; ISBN:0072230169)
in summation:
A famous irish tale is told of a tourist, unfamiliar with a lieu, who, while lost trying to find his way to a well known monument, stopped to ask directions of a local irish man. the irish man replied famously: " if i were going there, ...i would not start from here"
moral of story: There are many books that will teach you approaches or take you on all sorts of roads, beaten paths & straits as you make your approach / journey to the sometimes puzzling & forrested frontier leading to the kingdom that is database design. this book is one of the better,better places to commence your trek from as you make your way to total db design mastery.
believe me, sooner or later & eventually, this translation skill/ability/know-how, is that which you will need to consistently use and definately needs to compute for you, in order to cut to Pro.
enough said!
ps: for other solid, companion roads and approaches to take, see book review on: 'Designing effective database systems; ISBN: 0321290933.
pps: if you are just after learning how to construct/choose good indexes in real-life practise, check out: 'Relational Database Index Design and the Optimizers' ; ISBN : 0471719994 ; plus -(still on indexes), if you can, also check out Joe Celko's 'SQL for Smarties' (3rd Edition); ISBN: 0123693799
cheers. :-):-)
Lots and Lots of Fluff, Needs Editor
This is possibly the worst written technical book I've ever read. I'd REALLY like my money back. Powell repeats some things over and over and over again. Sometimes, he re-phrases the same concept 3 or more times in the very same paragraph.
For example, I could not even guess how many times he explains that excessive normalization leads to poorer performance most of the time. I would guess he makes that point 30-50 times, and often 2-3 times on the same page. This is just one example, but the book is filled with fluff such as this.
There are also plenty of mistakes and awkwardly worded passages that make reading the book difficult. Many of the diagrams and examples could have been better chosen so as to reduce confusion.
So why did I give it 2 stars instead of 1? Well, there is *some* useful information in this book. I did learn some things from this book, but I'd like to stress that I don't think there is anything that I learned that I couldn't have learned from free sources on the internet. Take a look at http://www.phlonx.com/resources/nf3.php. In addition to that link, do a search on "Entity Relationship Diagram", and you'll have learned 95% of what is in this book.
I almost feel bad making such a critical review, but on the other hand, I feel bad that I spent money on this book. I wish I had another title to recommend to you, but I've got to go looking myself for a replacement for this book.
You need know-how and the extra tips here to get ahead
Typical beginner books give you the how-to-do-it while ignoring the human side of the story. Gavin Powell's book provides both. Having been a database consultant myself for many years, I know that the secret to success is a healthy combination of tech-skills and people-skills. Here is a quote from Powell's book that tells it like it is:
"There is no point in building a database design if it is not accepted because people simply don't like you. ...Many technical people think that being liked is unimportant. They are wrong!"
Gavin's hard-headed common sense is everywhere in the book, sprinkled liberally within the nuts and bolts of how to design a robust, well-tuned database.
Other features I like include: the comprehensive glossary and index; the exercises at the end of chapter with solutions; and the large amount of working SQL examples throughout.
(15 reviews)
