general

I read some of the reviews here. The comments varies from a good book to a worthless one.

If you are really interested in making a career out of databases, then this is a book you got to read. An analogy that comes to mind is "You got to have a strong foundation to build a sky craper". This is exactly what this book is. It helps you build a strong foundation.

I got hold of this book when I was in my 4th Semester of my BS in computer science (1994 - 2nd Edition of this book) to clear my Database concepts exam. Ever since, whenever I feel I might not have understood some concept, I go back to this book.

One thing you got to understand is, its not a book that you can just read through and tell people that you have understood the concepts. You need to work the book.

Rgds,
Naveen
IBM DB2 UDB Certified Specialist.

This is the book I grab off of the shelf when I need to refresh my memory on database concepts. Do you need a background in programming? Absolutely. Can you learn from this book? Definitely. Is it a tough book? Yup. Databases are not for the tame...but if you want to learn, get yourself access to a database server and grab a copy of this book.

I've read both this one and "DATABASE SYSTEMS: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND MANAGEMENT" (Connolly/Begg), and the latter is by far the best. Some ideas that takes a few seconds to grasp Connollys book, took me about a half an hour to grasp in this one (which I noticed when I tried to refresh my memory). The reason is that it is written in a sometimes incredibly difficult and complex way. Why? For no good reason at all, as far as I can see. The descriptions are not any more "rigorous" or "exact", they are just difficult without gaining anything. The ideas are the same.

Avoid it, unless you want to waste you time with a book that makes learning 10 times slower than with a good one.