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Rating: 
Summary: A book you'll keep as a reference
Review: After looking at the books used by the local LA Universities and Colleges to teach the subject, I felt very sad for the CS, and IT students of these schools. Lectures are one thing, having a good textbook is the other. It's the great textbook that doesn't go back for a refund after the quarters over. All I could find where books on Access programming. "Learn Access in 21 days", just does not do justice to Normalization theory. Books on SQL seem only to rehash syntax and provide the occasional example. I looked all over for a book that hit on the important topics a programmer, DB Analysts, or DB Administrator needs to know independent of the platform. Ample theory is presented here in an understandable way so those key concepts can be used to develop solutions to real world problems.
Rating:
Summary: A book you'll keep as a reference
Review: After looking at the books used by the local LA Universities and Colleges to teach the subject, I felt very sad for the CS, and IT students of these schools. Lectures are one thing, having a good textbook is the other. It's the great textbook that doesn't go back for a refund after the quarters over. All I could find where books on Access programming. "Learn Access in 21 days", just does not do justice to Normalization theory. Books on SQL seem only to rehash syntax and provide the occasional example. I looked all over for a book that hit on the important topics a programmer, DB Analysts, or DB Administrator needs to know independent of the platform. Ample theory is presented here in an understandable way so those key concepts can be used to develop solutions to real world problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Wordy, redundant, tedious, still a good coverage
Review: I agree that this book could be well resumed in 300 pages. Too much text, too few figures. For instance, when you make a classification or an enumeration of things that have long definitions, it is a good idea to organize them in a bullet-list or numbered list or something similar, instead of just plain text. If you constanly fail to use such synthetic representations, the result is made of large chunks of plain text, hard to read, tedious, redundant.Also, you can use more visual indicators that give you an instant information about various pieces of text: bold text, spaces, various font sizes and shapes, icons, etc, so that the reader can focus on particular sections of such a big book. They call it Readability, and it's far from being great here. There are also some points left unfinished: when you read "The first idea would be to...", you expect that the second idea follows sometime. Well, there are exceptions in this book. I like the idea of mixing theory with industry examples in the same book, but please make a clear separation. Sometimes I can't say whether a particular sentence refers to such a real system or it is a theoretical statement. In conclusion, this book features a good coverage of the subject but also a lack of organization and readability.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor writing but many various examples
Review: Pros:
- many examples
- examples for various databases (Oracle, DBQ, etc.) Cons:
- poorly written, wordy
- difficult to read
- gives examples for various databases, but each example does
not have a version for each database -> if you want to
learn on a specificat database, you will have holes in the
examples Overall: Poor book, would not recommend
Rating:
Summary: Poor writing but many various examples
Review: Pros:
- many examples
- examples for various databases (Oracle, DBQ, etc.) Cons:
- poorly written, wordy
- difficult to read
- gives examples for various databases, but each example does
not have a version for each database -> if you want to
learn on a specificat database, you will have holes in the
examples Overall: Poor book, would not recommend
Rating:
Summary: The worst database book
Review: This is a very wordy and messy book. Very simple things came out to be pages and pages of words. So many pages, just waste your time, also your money! I think it only need 300 pages for the whole things he talked about. Some points were repeated again and again! We do not need a Ph.D paper, just need a useful reference. This is 5-stars for Ph.D paper writing, not for text book and other use. By the way, the first 5 chapters are very good.
Rating: 
Summary: Database: Principles, Programming, Performance
Review: This is one of the best books on the subject.
It gives a thorough and solid foundation on the databases. It helped me quickly identify the weaknesses and strengths in all the leading DBMS products but above all, realized that 80% of all the experts out there in the field, don't know what they are doing. However, if you have a short attention span, are intimidated by certain dry material and used to books like Databases in 24hrs, this book is not for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst database book ever--a waste of money!
Review: This is the worst computer-science text I have ever read. The explanations are confused and extremely wordy. The writing style is very disorganized. Many examples serve to completely confuse the reader rather than to illustrate a point. My guess is that the authors never bothered to proofread the text carefully. In short, don't waste your money on this worthless book!
Rating:
Summary: Best database book for engineers
Review: This was my first database book which i have read, and I can honestly say that it made me an expert. All other books which iI read after this one seemed useless and very boring and content-weak. It's a heave book, I do agree on that, and it has too many theoretical and mathematical models applied to designing a database, but those actually make you understand the subject even more. I don't recommend this book for an average computer scientist, it is not appropriate for such a level. But if you're on your way to an engineering degree, I'm sure you will find this book very appealing.
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