Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: The matter is well presented and discussed in detail. If you want to know the internals of the database this is THE book.
Rating: 
Summary: Confusing and poorly written
Review: The textbook comes complete with great online supplemental information, but that doesn't make it a great textbook. I've found that the material is often not explained thoroughly enough. Also, some of the exercises expect you to know about concepts that are not covered adequately in the text (for example, there are questions on 2NF, and there is no more than a couple sentences on the subject). The material as a whole is not explained very clearly, and the chapters on the lower-level subject material (systems) are not quite up to par.I suppose the reason I was a bit disappointed is because this is such an important subject, and I was hoping for a real keeper. This book is decent, but definitely not great.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a great textbook, not a terrible textbook
Review: The textbook comes complete with great online supplemental information, but that doesn't make it a great textbook. I've found that the material is often not explained thoroughly enough. Also, some of the exercises expect you to know about concepts that are not covered adequately in the text (for example, there are questions on 2NF, and there is no more than a couple sentences on the subject). The material as a whole is not explained very clearly, and the chapters on the lower-level subject material (systems) are not quite up to par. I suppose the reason I was a bit disappointed is because this is such an important subject, and I was hoping for a real keeper. This book is decent, but definitely not great.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for anyone who wants some DBMS knowledge
Review: This book covers all the aspects of a DBMS, from theory to practical usage. The internals are explained very well. The thing I liked most is that it covrs not only RDBMS, but also OODBMS, ORDBMS, XML, etc. which are emerging technologies. Since databases are the most critical part of any enterprise system, all the people in IT industry - from junior programmer to project managers - must read this book if they want to learn about databases.
Rating:
Summary: Good for engineers, bad for scientists
Review: This book explains all relevant aspects of database systems, but in very informal way. It can be used for introduction of different aspects of databases to people that are not interested in theory, but in praxis of databases. There are some new aspects explained, such as data mining, object-oriented databases, ect. But there is no formal propositions nor proves of anything in it. So, from scientific view the book is worthless.
Rating:
Summary: OK Book
Review: This book is good for a undergraduate course, but nothing beyond. It is great for introducing databases, but the coverage on database design is pathetic. I would recommend the stanadard book by Ullman (2e) for this topic, for the more interested reader. The bibiography at the end of the book is great!
Rating:
Summary: Explains fundamental things about databases
Review: This book is good for engineers which work with databases. There are explained all aspects of databases. On the other hand, the book is not reccomended for those who are interested in theory of databases. There is no formal propositions or proves of anything in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for Database Design.Needs some update on OLAP,Dataminin
Review: This book is really good for Database Design and certain topics like Query Optimiztaion,Relational Calculus are well dealt.Advanced Topics in Databases are poorly dealt.some of the Topics which really needs some update are OLAP,Datamining and Decision Support,Performance Tuning.
Rating:
Summary: poorly written and confusing! not even worth its price
Review: This book was required for my database course, so I didn't really have a choice about buying it. It has numerous typos (I stopped marking them when I hit 7 or 8 by the third chapter) which often cause problems because they're not spelling errors but rather substitutions of terms or incorrect figure numbers. Also, a large portion of the questions at the end of chapter 5 cover material that is not presented until chapter 6. I'm a college student so I don't have much money. I've had to buy 2 additional books for this course just to understand what's going on. There are VERY few examples (it really seems like the more complex the topic, the fewer examples are shown). Figures are usually only printed once, even if they are referred to repeatedly, so be prepared to spend time flipping back and forth to view a table that was shown to you several chapters ago. Moreover, formal definitions are given without explanation. As a 'learning' tool this book does more harm than good. It might have some value as a reference book because it concisely covers a very wide range of topics. The book makes more sense if you read it when you already know/understand everything (maybe that's why some instructors seem to love it). However, for students it's like trying to put a puzzle together when you don't have all the pieces and you don't have a clue what the picture is supposed to look like. By the way, I'm also a straight 'A' senior, and trying to learn from this book has been one of the most frustrating and unrewarding experiences I've had in college thus far. Just BEWARE!!!
Rating:
Summary: This book is TERRIBLE
Review: This book was required for my database course, so I didn't really have a choice about buying it. It has numerous typos (I stopped marking them when I hit 7 or 8 by the third chapter) which often cause problems because they're not spelling errors but rather substitutions of terms or incorrect figure numbers. Also, a large portion of the questions at the end of chapter 5 cover material that is not presented until chapter 6. I'm a college student so I don't have much money. I've had to buy 2 additional books for this course just to understand what's going on. There are VERY few examples (it really seems like the more complex the topic, the fewer examples are shown). Figures are usually only printed once, even if they are referred to repeatedly, so be prepared to spend time flipping back and forth to view a table that was shown to you several chapters ago. Moreover, formal definitions are given without explanation. As a 'learning' tool this book does more harm than good. It might have some value as a reference book because it concisely covers a very wide range of topics. The book makes more sense if you read it when you already know/understand everything (maybe that's why some instructors seem to love it). However, for students it's like trying to put a puzzle together when you don't have all the pieces and you don't have a clue what the picture is supposed to look like. By the way, I'm also a straight 'A' senior, and trying to learn from this book has been one of the most frustrating and unrewarding experiences I've had in college thus far. Just BEWARE!!!
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