Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!urth!rfm
From: rfm%urth@Sun.COM (Richard McAllister)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Cynic's Guide, part 5:  Bookshelf
Message-ID: <52707@sun.uucp>
Date: 10 May 88 20:03:02 GMT
References: <2768@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: rfm@sun.com (Richard McAllister)
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Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 20
Summary: Date's database book is standard

In article <2768@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> neff@Shasta.UUCP (Randy Neff) writes:
>This started a chain of thought:  what books should we expect every
>software engineer to have available; preferably own.
>
>Software Engineering:
> [...]
>Database:
>	(can't think of definitive book)

Chris Date's two-volume "An Introduction to Database Systems" is probably
the right one.  Its only flaw is excessive reverence toward the relational
model.  Reading his "Relational Database: Selected Writings" would help as
it is full of more polemical papers which help expose Date's biases; once
you know what those biases are you can safely use the general work.

Perhaps a book on database design ought to be added, though I can't think of
any that are general enough to recommend in a list like this.  DB design
books tend to present a single method rather than taking a global view.

Rich McAllister (rfm@sun.com)