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Rating: 
Summary: A useful review quotation
Review: Every now and then I find a review somewhere else in cyberspace that I wish was posted on Amazon.com. Here is one from the ACCU.org website.
"Reviewed by Silvia de Beer in Overload OL37 (May 2000)
This book has not taught me anything new. I can not think who the intended audience would be. In the preface the author claims you need to be thoroughly familiar with the relational database model and that you do not need a background in the OO paradigm.Part one, a hundred pages of theory, explains the OO data model. UML is shortly mentioned, but throughout the rest of the book ER models are used. The quality of some of the models is doubtful, as inheritance seems overvalued. Normal associations, like delegation or other forms, are not mentioned as an alternative. I do not know why this book has OO Database design in the title, because hardly any specifics about this topic can be found in the book. The equivalent of SQL for OO databases is ODL and OQL, but it is stated 'A discussion of OQL is beyond the scope of this book'. So what is in the scope of the book? Part two, two hundred pages, consists of three case studies. It contains many pages on useless company descriptions. The OO database design is based on the relational model, copied from the book Relational Database Design by the same author. Some tables are slightly objectified, but this is all that is done. There is no design, just repetitive code listings, of which the book contains no less than hundred pages. I cannot recommend this book, you better read a good OO introduction and find another source for OO databases." I couldn't have said it better. My reccomendation is some other guide. You might want to look at "Introduction to Object-Oriented Databases" by Won Kim or better yet, just go learn to do Object Oriented Analysis and Design using UML from the "UML Distilled" book, then (and only then) create am Object Persistance Model from the UML design. Devin.
Rating: 
Summary: Low content book for a quick read
Review: I knew it would be difficult to get hold of a good book on object oriented databases after reading the Amazon reviews on the subject. This one is ok. It contains very little. It doesn't require any programming knowledge. It can be read easily within a dozend hours, if one doesn't try to delve too deeply into the examples - just look at the conceptually new things. I estimate the trustworthyness of the contents as medium.
Rating: 
Summary: valuable insights not easily found elsewhere
Review: I really like the way this book steps through the progression from relational databases to hybrid databases to fully object-oriented databases. This is not a book on designing object-oriented applications (of which there are many good titles). It is about designing databases. The content is excellent, and is, indeed, "clearly explained." In my opinion, it is most appropriate for people with some experience with entity-relationship diagrams, and some programming background. The references cited are the "masters." This book does not waste the reader's time with silly humor or unnecessary material. I hope there will be a second edition. If there is, the glossary might be somewhat expanded. I would like additional unified modeling language (UML) diagrams. I would like an explicit explanation of "impedience mismatch" between object-oriented applications and relational databases, although this may be slightly out of scope. This is a unique and valuable book. Being a teacher, I see its value in the classroom. It is a practical book which surely is also of immediate value to progressive database administrators and programmers who are helping bring object technology into their organizations. It is an excellent textbook for courses on object-oriented database design. I plan to use it as a second textbook for a general course on databases. I think it would also be ideal as a second textbook for courses in object-oriented systems design which include database design. Bruce Neubauer -- Pittsburg State University
Rating:
Summary: valuable insights not easily found elsewhere
Review: I really like the way this book steps through the progression from relational databases to hybrid databases to fully object-oriented databases. This is not a book on designing object-oriented applications (of which there are many good titles). It is about designing databases. The content is excellent, and is, indeed, "clearly explained." In my opinion, it is most appropriate for people with some experience with entity-relationship diagrams, and some programming background. The references cited are the "masters." This book does not waste the reader's time with silly humor or unnecessary material. I hope there will be a second edition. If there is, the glossary might be somewhat expanded. I would like additional unified modeling language (UML) diagrams. I would like an explicit explanation of "impedience mismatch" between object-oriented applications and relational databases, although this may be slightly out of scope. This is a unique and valuable book. Being a teacher, I see its value in the classroom. It is a practical book which surely is also of immediate value to progressive database administrators and programmers who are helping bring object technology into their organizations. It is an excellent textbook for courses on object-oriented database design. I plan to use it as a second textbook for a general course on databases. I think it would also be ideal as a second textbook for courses in object-oriented systems design which include database design. Bruce Neubauer -- Pittsburg State University
Rating:
Summary: Another fast book? Object databases for OO beginners -Why?
Review: If you don't already know and understand the basic object terminology explained in this book, you probably don't need to start with a book on object databases. I would also read the reviews of this author's other books. They are mostly very bad. This author seems to write more book than anyone could write and do a good job - even if they wrote fulltime - much less if they taught college as this author claims to. This book is probably not worth the money or your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Exactly the book I needed
Review: Needing a database backend for one of my projects but not quite up to speed on the relational database model, I stopped by the campus library and found this book. I plowed through the first half of the book in an afternoon, and started writing code for PostgreSQL the next day. This book is short, to the point, and fairly shallow. A great starting place if you want just enough background to understand a database product's documentation. This is definitely not an in-depth SQL reference, but many of those details vary between implementations anyway. The book could be improved by replacing the chapter on CASE tools with more material on advanced SQL hacking.
Rating:
Summary: good overall introduction, but . . .
Review: This book is a relatively easily read intro., but is nowhere near being the definitive work on OODB. This book is useful but only in conjunction with other works. For example you will do at least as well with Stonebraker's (old) OODB book; SQL99 refs. covering OO concepts; some vendor publications; the OO parts of some general db books (e.g., Silberschatz, et. al.); the ODMG 3.0 spec book, etc.
As other reviewers have said, it's not clear who this book is aimed at. Including a general (and mediocre) OO introduction is seemingly pointless. No reader moving beyond relational db's into OODB is likely to be unfamiliar with OO. Also the DB modelling intro. is lame. There are some mistakes (typos in code that clearly wouldn't work!), but the narrative is generally good. The examples are long winded (multiple chapters) to make points that could be summarized in a lot fewer pages.
I'd give this book only 1 or 2 stars, but I don't know of a single clearly better volume available yet.
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