Designing Effective Database Systems

Authors:Rebecca M. Riordan
Pages:353
Publisher:Addison Wesley
ISBN13:9780321290939
Description:
Relational databases are tricky beasts. Other kinds of commercial software are infinitely easier to understand. Word processors are really just high-tech typewriters, and it's pretty clear that the backspace key beats that little jar of white stuff cold. Spreadsheets present a familiar enough paradigm, even to non-accountants, and email is close enough to the postal system for the model to be comprehensible. Databases are different. Other kinds of software have a real-world analogy. Sometimes, as in the Windows desktop, the analogy is a little tenuous, but the analogies are close enough; you can get there from here. But relational databases are completely artificial. They're like geometry: They can be used to build models of the real world, but they don't exist in the real world.
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