For over 25 years, C. J. Date's An Introduction to Database Systems has been the authoritative resource for readers interested in gaining insight into and understanding of the principles of database systems. This revision continues to provide a solid grounding in the foundations of database technology and to provide some ideas as to how the field is likely to develop in the future.. "Readers of this book will gain a strong working knowledge of the overall structure, concepts, and objectives of database systems and will become familiar with the theoretical principles underlying the construction of such systems.
Christopher J. Date (born 1941) is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant, specializing in relational database theory. —from wikipedia
Really enjoyed it, it was surprisingly easy to read. Explained all the rules and principles well. I was thinking about our production code all the time while reading it.
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.
A rigorous, highly opinionated overview of database theory and some practice. Transaction management is only lightly covered but the sections on relational algebra/calculus and normalization make up for it.
A wonderful book from an academic point of view. It is mostly easy to read, yet it provides a solid knowledge about the theory that is behind relational databases. The book's approach is progressive: first it explains things in a more understandable way and then, when the reader has enough information, it proceeds to more formally correct explanations.
Unfortunately, the author's approach is a bit too theory-centric. He strongly criticises "inconsistencies" between the math and existing systems. This is a point of views that must be respected of course, but sometimes he doesn't see that these inconsistencies make them fast and able to scale as required by modern workloads.
This book is very comprehensive and theoretical description of relational databases, but this is it's bad side. High theoretical level and lack of real-world examples can't make it, for example, be recommended as an introduction as said in it's title
Definitely comprehensive. I find it an amusing indictment of the industry (though not of this book) that SQL doesn't implement the relational model, and the relational DBMSs don't implement standard SQL.
Wonderful book. This book significantly improved my database skills when I was starting out as a relatively new programmer. (New meaning Delphi programmer, who finally earned access to full data rights to our Oracle databases.)