Starting with a small negative. This book frustrated me at times. There is no shortage of great (and essential) information from start to finish, but the constant ‘battle’ references, and over explanation on non essential points drove me crazy. eg. In the discussion of atomicity, an extra couple of sentences on its 5th century Greek origins is a distraction. That aside, this is the best practical SQL/Relation model book I have read. Chapter 6, ‘The Nine Situations’ is perfect to make yourself look at data situations in different ways, and the different ways of handling them. I had not thought of breaking them down like this. Don’t even think of reading this book unless you have a number of years of RDBMS experience & some failure, as you will be left behind. Even experienced database developers will be challenged, and may have to come back to a topic later (like I did a number of times), for it to make its point. An almost brilliant book.
Readability 3 from 5
Subject Depth 5 from 5
Authors Stephane Faroult & Peter Robson
Publisher O’Reilly
Year 2006
Pages 367
ISBN 0596008945