Practical Issues in Database Management A Refernce for the Thinking Practitioner

--C. J. Date Three decades ago relational technology put the database field on a sound, scientific foundation for the first time. But the database industry--vendors, users, experts, and the trade press--has essentially flouted its principles, focusing instead on a "cookbook," product-specific approach, devoid of conceptual understanding. The consequences have been costly: DBMS products, databases, development tools, and applications don't always perform up to expectation or potential, and they can encourage the wrong questions and provide the wrong answers.Practical Issues in Database Managementis an attempt to remedy this intractable and costly situation. Written for database designers, programmers, managers, and users, it addresses the core, commonly recurring issues and problems that practitioners--even the most experienced database professionals--seem to systematically misunderstand, namely: Unstructured data and complex data types Business rules and integrity enforcement Keys Duplicates Normalization and denormalization Entity subtypes and supertypes Data hierarchies and recursive queries Redundancy Quota queries Missing information Fabian Pascal examines these critical topics thoroughly, comparing the severe costs of mishandling them to the practical benefits of implementing the correct solutions. With an emphasis on both principles and practice,Practical Issues in Database Managementemploys real-world examples to provide an assessment of current technology--SQL and the DBMS products based on it--and, whenever possible, offers concrete recommendations and workarounds. With the insight provided byPractical Issues in Database Management, you will be in a far better position to evaluate specific products, exploit their capabilities, and avoid their deficiencies. 0201485559B04062001Pascal, Fabian is the author of 'Practical Issues in Database Management A Refernce for the Thinking Practitioner' with ISBN 9780201485554 and ISBN 0201485559.