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) Distribution: na 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)