You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
153 lines
7.2 KiB
153 lines
7.2 KiB
11 months ago
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
||
|
|
<html lang="en">
|
||
|
|
<head>
|
||
|
|
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
|
||
|
|
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!-- Enable responsiveness on mobile devices-->
|
||
|
|
<!-- viewport-fit=cover is to support iPhone X rounded corners and notch in landscape-->
|
||
|
|
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1, viewport-fit=cover">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<title>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</title>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!-- CSS -->
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/print.css" media="print">
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/poole.css">
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/hyde.css">
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=PT+Sans:400,400italic,700|Abril+Fatface">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</head>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<body class=" ">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div class="sidebar">
|
||
|
|
<div class="container sidebar-sticky">
|
||
|
|
<div class="sidebar-about">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me"><h1>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</h1></a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p class="lead">Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<ul class="sidebar-nav">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/">English</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt">Português</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/tags">Tags (EN)</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt/tags">Tags (PT)</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</ul>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div class="content container">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div class="post">
|
||
|
|
<h1 class="post-title">Concise Guide To Databases - Peter Lake, Paul Crowther</h1>
|
||
|
|
<span class="post-date">
|
||
|
|
2021-02-10
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/books/">#books</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/reviews/">#reviews</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/it/">#it</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/books-2021/">#books:2021</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/published-2013/">#published:2013</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/peter-lake/">#peter lake</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/paul-crowther/">#paul crowther</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/stars-1/">#stars:1</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</span>
|
||
|
|
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18475615-concise-guide-to-databases">GoodReads
|
||
|
|
Summary</a>:
|
||
|
|
This easy-to-read textbook/reference presents a comprehensive introduction to
|
||
|
|
databases, opening with a concise history of databases and of data as an
|
||
|
|
organisational asset. As relational database management systems are no longer
|
||
|
|
the only database solution, the book takes a wider view of database technology,
|
||
|
|
encompassing big data, NoSQL, object and object-relational, and in-memory
|
||
|
|
databases. The text also examines the issues of scalability, availability,
|
||
|
|
performance and security encountered when building and running a database in the
|
||
|
|
real world.</p>
|
||
|
|
<span id="continue-reading"></span><div>
|
||
|
|
★☆☆☆☆
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
<p>Let me get something out of my system straight away: This book needs some
|
||
|
|
<strong>serious</strong> proof-reading. The authors seem to have an aversion to commas, and
|
||
|
|
that makes reading some sentences really hard ("Is that an adjective or a noun?
|
||
|
|
Oh, heck, I though it was an adjective, and now things don't make sense; let me
|
||
|
|
read that again as a noun to see if that works.") There are a lot of repeat
|
||
|
|
content (three times there is a discussion on how HDD prices are falling, how
|
||
|
|
the price per megabyte is falling and how SSD is faster than HD). All the
|
||
|
|
abstracts, the first part of every chapter, are just some copy'n'paste from a
|
||
|
|
few phrases of the first part after the abstract. And there are "is in the a
|
||
|
|
Microsoft", "none encrypted protocol" and there is even a "[company] and there
|
||
|
|
product". And two paragraphs one-next-to-the-other have "OS" written in 3
|
||
|
|
different ways ("o/s", "O/S" and "OS"). Oh, and there is no definitive style for
|
||
|
|
anything: Sometimes quotations would have a larger margin compared to the rest
|
||
|
|
of the text and sometimes they won't; all commands (including SQL queries and
|
||
|
|
related commands to be entered in databases) are all in the same font as the
|
||
|
|
rest of the text (with one single exception in the end of the book); sometimes
|
||
|
|
there are sub-sub-sections (like "14.4.1.1) and sometimes it just uses bold text
|
||
|
|
with no numeration.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>But, if the book was actually nice (and easy) to read, besides all that, does is
|
||
|
|
live to its title? No.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Is it "Concise"? Well, not quite. The printed version is 300+ pages long, which
|
||
|
|
I could hardly call "concise". A lot of content could be removed with no affect
|
||
|
|
in the end, like the step-by-step explanation of all 5 levels of database
|
||
|
|
normalization (which is also arguable if that makes sense in a book that should
|
||
|
|
discuss databases), the explanation of XML (which is not arguable and feels
|
||
|
|
completely lost in a book about databases) and discussions on what to do when a
|
||
|
|
disk fails.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Is it a "Guide"? Not quite. The book does explore (lightly) different databases,
|
||
|
|
but fails to point <strong>where</strong> each makes sense: What kind of data/database
|
||
|
|
structure makes sense in a relational database? What kind of data fits better on
|
||
|
|
a NoSQL database? When it makes sense to use Hadoop?</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Is it about "Databases"? That's where the book fails hard, in my opinion. Sure,
|
||
|
|
it talks about Oracle, and a bit about Mongo, and Oracle, and some about
|
||
|
|
Cassandra, and Oracle, and they even mention Hadoop. And then Oracle. It feels
|
||
|
|
like the whole book is just a huge propaganda on how to operate Oracle, how
|
||
|
|
Oracle tools work, and so on. Sure they talk about other databases, but when
|
||
|
|
every example is about Oracle, you have to wonder why.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Another example of how the book leans towards Oracle: There is a single mention
|
||
|
|
to PostgreSQL, saying that it "is popular with personal computer users". Heck,
|
||
|
|
AWS RDS was launched 4 years prior to the publishing of this book and it already
|
||
|
|
had the PostgreSQL layer. Since early 2000s, every time someone asked "What
|
||
|
|
database should I use for my project?" there was at least one "PostgreSQL"
|
||
|
|
answer. But, since PostgreSQL is in direct competition with Oracle, you can see
|
||
|
|
why it is largely ignored.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>So, hard to read and doesn't fill the topic it proposes in its title. "7
|
||
|
|
Databases in 7 Weeks" does a better job about being a Guide to Databases than
|
||
|
|
this.</p>
|
||
|
|
<hr />
|
||
|
|
<p>ISSN 1863-7310e-ISSN 2197-1781</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>ISBN 978-1-4471-5600-0e-ISBN 978-1-4471-5601-7</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</body>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</html>
|