Re: Looking for good reference materials for SQL programming.

I have been playing with postgresql for a while and have a copy of the book Postgresql on order.

Are there any good reference materials available to teach how to do effective SQL and relational database design. I would prefer something more platform neutral but covers the theroy and concepts of good database design. Does anyone here have any suggestions for such materials?

Thanks in advance.

"Eric Naujock " <naujocke(at)abacusii(dot)com> writes:

> I have been playing with postgresql for a while and have a copy of the book Postgresql on order.
>
> Are there any good reference materials available to teach how to do
> effective SQL and relational database design. I would prefer
> something more platform neutral but covers the theroy and concepts
> of good database design. Does anyone here have any suggestions for
> such materials?

There is a /very/ good book, whose exact name escapes me at the
moment, but you should be able to find it on Amazon if you perform a
search for 'SQL' and 'Practical'.

HTH

--
Pete

pete(at)maverick-dbms(dot)org
-------------------------------------------------------------
MaVerick - Open Source MultiValue Database Management System
Check out the website -> http://www.maverick-dbms.org

Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties is pretty good. It's got a lot of the basic
stuff, but it gets really complicated as well (simulating trees and
directed graphs, etc... -- which makes org charts easy in SQL).

I think he has some other books as well. I'm sure there are many
others as well...

On Wed, 9 May 2001, Eric Naujock wrote:

> I have been playing with postgresql for a while and have a copy of the book Postgresql on order.
>
> Are there any good reference materials available to teach how to do effective SQL and relational database design. I would prefer something more platform neutral but covers the theroy and concepts of good database design. Does anyone here have any suggestions for such materials?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
>
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"Eric Naujock " <naujocke(at)abacusii(dot)com> writes:

> I have been playing with postgresql for a while and have a copy of the book Postgresql on order.
>
> Are there any good reference materials available to teach how to do
> effective SQL and relational database design. I would prefer
> something more platform neutral but covers the theroy and concepts
> of good database design. Does anyone here have any suggestions for
> such materials?

There is a /very/ good book, whose exact name escapes me at the
moment, but you should be able to find it on Amazon if you perform a
search for 'SQL' and 'Practical'.

HTH

--
Pete

pete(at)maverick-dbms(dot)org
-------------------------------------------------------------
MaVerick - Open Source MultiValue Database Management System
Check out the website -> http://www.maverick-dbms.org

Hi!
I've got a couple of machines here, one running Debian
stable and the other running Debian unstable. The one
running unstable also has Postgresql-7.1.x on it, the
one running stable has Apache. Some mod_perl stuff
I'm installing uses psql at times, can a person safely get
by using psql from Postgresql-6.5.x (which is all that
Debian stable has now)?

Thanks,
Gord

Matter Realisations http://www.materialisations.com/
Gordon Haverland, B.Sc. M.Eng. President
101 9504 182 St. NW Edmonton, AB, CA T5T 3A7
780/481-8019 ghaverla @ freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
780/993-1274 (cell)

On 9 May 2001, at 23:20, pete(at)example(dot)compulink(dot)co(dot)uk wrote:

> "Eric Naujock " <naujocke(at)abacusii(dot)com> writes:
>
> > I have been playing with postgresql for a while and have a copy of
> > the book Postgresql on order.
> >
> > Are there any good reference materials available to teach how to do
> > effective SQL and relational database design. I would prefer
> > something more platform neutral but covers the theroy and concepts
> > of good database design. Does anyone here have any suggestions for
> > such materials?

Someone else wrote:
> There is a /very/ good book, whose exact name escapes me at the
> moment, but you should be able to find it on Amazon if you perform a
> search for 'SQL' and 'Practical'.

That is probably Practical SQL :) ... worth a read but unless I missed
something I didn't see where it helped with design (does help with SQL
though).

I would recommned Greenspun. Any of his books plus whatever his
websites are now will help:

http://www.arsdigita.com/asj/

http://www.arsdigita.com/asj/data-warehousing

> Data Warehousing for Cavemen, a guide to how large organizations use
> database management software

> Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing

http://www.arsdigita.com/books/panda/index.html

Peter
All idioms must be learned.
Good idioms only need to be learned once.
--Alan Cooper

ghaverla(at)freenet(dot)edmonton(dot)ab(dot)ca writes:
> I've got a couple of machines here, one running Debian
> stable and the other running Debian unstable. The one
> running unstable also has Postgresql-7.1.x on it, the
> one running stable has Apache. Some mod_perl stuff
> I'm installing uses psql at times, can a person safely get
> by using psql from Postgresql-6.5.x (which is all that
> Debian stable has now)?

6.5 psql should talk to current servers, but you may find that its
attempts to query system catalogs (for backslash commands) don't work
due to using out-of-date queries. Not sure if you care for this
application...

regards, tom lane

"Peter J. Schoenster" <peter(at)schoenster(dot)com> writes:

> Someone else wrote:
> > There is a /very/ good book, whose exact name escapes me at the
> > moment, but you should be able to find it on Amazon if you perform a
> > search for 'SQL' and 'Practical'.
>
> That is probably Practical SQL :) ... worth a read but unless I missed
> something I didn't see where it helped with design (does help with SQL
> though).

That's the one :-)

I think (the actual book is currently at work) it's the second
edition. There appeared to be a couple of chapters near the beginning
which took someone who had a real world problem, but little knowledge
of relational database design, through the process of coming up with
a correctly normalised solution.

--
Pete

pete(at)maverick-dbms(dot)org
-------------------------------------------------------------
MaVerick - Open Source MultiValue Database Management System
Check out the website -> http://www.maverick-dbms.org