data storage and management

I compared this book with two other reference books (Date and Elmasri/Navathe). This book is the best of the three when it comes to presenting the whole database field with a special focus on the design of databases. The key differences to the other books I compared it with are that Date focuses much more on the relational model, whilst Elmasri/Navathe has many side-notes on Oracle and Access. This book by Ramakrishnan/Gehrke deals more with design aspects of databases and gives a broad, yet also somewhat deep introduction in this respect. It does not say much about any database systems on the market but focuses more on concepts. If you are specifically interested in database design, I would recommend getting an advanced book that deals with these issues. However, if you are looking for a general dbms reference book with a special focus on design, this is the best book on the market. Unlike other books (for instance Date), it is also written in a very effective manner and comes right to the point. This easy style is especially advantageous when it comes to more difficult topics such as normalization. Where others delight in formalization, this book actually explains. Solutions for half of the questions in the book can be downloaded from the author's website by anyone.

Well, I am sure authors have a lot of experience in the field of DBMS. However, what they wrote is just experience, not concept or formal definition. It is extremely easy for beginners to get entangled in the lengthy and vague chatting description. For those who know something about DBMS like me, this book turns out to make them more confused. I think even the writting style needs much room to improve. My have-to course requires this textbook, but I avoided buying it. Hohoho! spending over 100 bucks on this? I don't think so. I borrowed it from my friend only for the test. If you look for a good book, try "Database Systems Concepts" or "Database Systems Implementation". They are really good, at least for me.

This book was required for my database course, so I didn't really have a choice about buying it. It has numerous typos (I stopped marking them when I hit 7 or 8 by the third chapter) which often cause problems because they're not spelling errors but rather substitutions of terms or incorrect figure numbers. Also, a large portion of the questions at the end of chapter 5 cover material that is not presented until chapter 6.

I'm a college student so I don't have much money. I've had to buy 2 additional books for this course just to understand what's going on. There are VERY few examples (it really seems like the more complex the topic, the fewer examples are shown). Figures are usually only printed once, even if they are referred to repeatedly, so be prepared to spend time flipping back and forth to view a table that was shown to you several chapters ago.

Moreover, formal definitions are given without explanation. As a 'learning' tool this book does more harm than good. It might have some value as a reference book because it concisely covers a very wide range of topics. The book makes more sense if you read it when you already know/understand everything (maybe that's why some instructors seem to love it). However, for students it's like trying to put a puzzle together when you don't have all the pieces and you don't have a clue what the picture is supposed to look like. By the way, I'm also a straight 'A' senior, and trying to learn from this book has been one of the most frustrating and unrewarding experiences I've had in college thus far.

Just BEWARE!!!