Book Reviews
Over the last few weeks I’ve read a couple of very good books about database theory and practice. Rather than saying anything about them on the blog, I decided to put my comments into Amazon reviews (UK site).
The two books were: Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals - by Lex de Haan and Toon Koppelaars, and Relational Database Index Design and the Optimizers by Tapio Lahdenmaki and Mike Leach.
The Indexing book is likely to have a more immediate practical impact for DBAs, but the Applied Mathematics book has a wonderful chapter 11 that will be of particular benefit to developers who want to make sure that the only data that gets into their database is correct data.
For American readers, the Amazon.com links (without my reviews, of course, but with reviews from other readers) are: Applied Mathematics, and Indexing.
(This blog item operates in association with Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com).
I have heard about “Relational Database Index Design and the Optimizers” before. After reading your review it looks very promising.
Comment by Yas — January 18, 2008 @ 8:56 am UTC Jan 18,2008
Summary: Some people will find the symbolic logic heavy going, but everyone who has to deal with designing or coding an Oracle database ought to read chapter 11 and do their best to read chapter 7.
That sounds like a plan!
Comment by Doug Burns — January 18, 2008 @ 12:39 pm UTC Jan 18,2008
Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals, is an interesting and hard book (hard…perhaps I’m not so good at mathematics…
But if you have time to read it carefully, it’s a definitive “Thumbs up!”.
Bye.
Comment by lascoltodelvenerdi — January 21, 2008 @ 9:48 am UTC Jan 21,2008
“For American readers, the Amazon.com links (without my reviews, of course, but with reviews from other readers) are: Applied Mathematics, and Indexing.”
I would leave it at both Jonathan (especially with the increased orders from this side of the Pond with the weak USD), provided the books are identical, respectively. Neither Amazon site has a purchase with that particular outlet as a pre-condition for submitting a review.
Comment by SeánMacGC — January 22, 2008 @ 1:10 pm UTC Jan 22,2008
@lascoltodelvenerdi
It’s hard, yes, the cover is…
Glad you enjoyed it.
Comment by Toon Koppelaars — January 22, 2008 @ 6:47 pm UTC Jan 22,2008
Sean, When I created the review on the UK Amazon, one of the conditions was that I had purchased something from them - so I assumed it was the same on the US site. I’ll have to check when I get home.
Comment by Jonathan Lewis — January 22, 2008 @ 8:37 pm UTC Jan 22,2008
@Toon Koppelaars
Comment by lascoltodelvenerdi — January 23, 2008 @ 7:47 am UTC Jan 23,2008
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