database design

I read this book for training as a senior DBA consultant and enjoyed CJ Date's excellent treatise on databases. This is the ultimate book on database theory. Like another reader commented its not how to get OCP/MCDBA whatever certifications but actually will make life better in the long run as a serious DBA pro. I now actually understand the basis of complex database topics such as cursors, data models, and concurrency/locking topics that previously are skimmed over in other books and training guides. Best book for a beginner and yeah its a bit dry and academic but CJ Date writes clearly. A MUST FOR SERIOUS COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENTS!

Date's seminal work is critical to understanding databases - a step mostly forgotten by those who believe every concept can be taught using commercial products with brain-dead examples in under 24 hours. Date teaches the logic and theory that underlie all successful practice. You can probably buy a different book and create a mock database faster, but you will neither understand nor be able to use it well. Do yourself a favor and read this first to understand what a database is; only then can you judge the value of other books.

This is not a how-to, it is a how-to-understand. I own multiple editions of this book starting with the 3rd, when many of the examples referred to RBase. It won't tell you, with simple color diagrams and cut-and-paste examples, how to optimize your Oracle SQL queries or tune your DB/2 engine, but it will teach you the underlying principles of relational databases, from which the serious professional will be able to extrapolate. If you have the intelligence and stomach for it and you actually read it, it will serve you much better than the SQL in 24 hours picture books that some reviewers seem to be looking for -- it is a timeless and effective conceptual work on the subject that spans the evolution of commercial product implementations. Dilitantes and desperadoes, head for the Dummies aisle -- this one's not for you.