Designing Effective Database Systems (Addison-Wesley Microsoft Technology Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)This book gives you a points-to-points look-in on various core aspects ie: component parts & pieces, which earmark & characterizes the design of an effective database system
i'd say, this is a good (first,introductory db design book). it will endow you with the vision or skills to look at/objectively qualify ,the items you need to take into consideration all along the way to designing an effective database system from the beginning of the db design lifecycle to its watershed
This book is...
- Is a good, first birds-eye view of core aspects of the database design terrain from 5,000 feet.
- It's like circling at a high altitude of the database terrain first, whilst still practically clearly seeing the individual trees from the forest.
Its a 319 page read . the detail level is just about right to serve as a quick review of items to consider.
If its sorta your first dip into data & database design , its a good place to start but i'd recommend you take this book, couple it & digest it together with a read of :"Database Design" by Sams; ISBN:0672317583 -(a terrific book!) subsequently after ;
and you'll have a really good,full 20:20 vision of the database system design domain/aspect.
digesting these together gives you a brilliant foundation.
Value: The second book(ie: the Sams book), will patch-up on areas like relationships & give you more meat on all the core checklist of items to objectively consider straight away, if say tomorrow you found yourself commencing with/starting a db design effort. it's a better cookbook.
Riordan's book then would seem a very nice starter/introduction
At this new knowledge point/vantage, you are now equipped with a greater, squarer view of the terrain at some 7,000 feet. ie: at this point, if you were interested in doing the sql-server design exam: 70-229, or the Oracle fundamentals I equivalent: 1Z0-031, everything would make so much more sense re: triggers, sprocs, functions, cursors, Business rules + Constraints, RAID Backup , Indexing, Views, the SQL angle etc. if you pick up an ExamCram2 book + Transcender, Testking or whatever you select as your exam study guide of preference, you'll be able to finally see & understand how things -(aspects of the puzzle), actually all fit together and be able to translate almost effortlessly from conceptual design aspects to the necessary logical design-blueprint , to the physical implementation aspects.
And that which you understand... you won't forget
After digesting the Riordan book followed by the Sams book, you are now ready for intermediate to proficient level. 10,000 to 12,000 feet - design proficiency.
as a 3rd level book , i'd recommend you move on to reading the following 4 (ordered here by: most-entailed to least-entailed):
(1.) Database Modelling Essentials; ISBN:0126445516 ;
Value:(brings you a solid handle on building a database model to support a businesses activities)
(2.) Database Solutions; ISBN:0321173503 ;
Value: (clarity in cruising comfortably between d relational model and a good, solid, logical design...[a great book])
(3.) Database Design for Mere Mortals; ISBN: 0201752840 ;
Value: (great for reviewing Table Relationships -(setting-up joins) and reading the ERD -[Entity Relationship Diagrams])
AND
(4.) Databases Demystified; ISBN:0072253649 ;
Value: (great for stepping you linearly through the database lifecycle again, with good explanations about what you should be sure you are doing & obtaining from each stage/step of the lifecycle)..ie: that which will be expected of you at each step/stage chunk
To cap things up, Read :
- "Beginning Relational database design" ; ISBN:1590594630 ;
Value: (pulls all your data modelling personal resource skills together and reconstitutes them for you by casting you in a role where you practice modelling a complete system from scratch ie: -[from gathering the requirements specification, to the end of the detailed conceptual database design effort for the system]);
And you'll have all the core skills you need to build/design one mean database, enterprise-oriented or otherwise or reverse-engineer one.
if you are already in the thick of a project and are really pressed to find a db design solution -[(logical) + (implementation in SQL code)] right now, maybe consider buying or looking into purchasing the pricey: "Data Model Resource CD_ROM" ;ISBN:0471388289;
Value: it boasts a library of proven: tried and tested Universal Data Models, for all Enterprise types.
So, all you'll need do is adapt or borrow a design solution/model or architecture that applies closely to what you're trying to accomplish modelling for your database project ,and adapt & implement it as a solution for the database system you are designing. it's Magic!
Though i rated d Riordan book 4 stars for the depth of its content matter, the book rates more like a 4.5 for sheer readability & clarity of explanations for such an often notoriously complex technical subject area.
I'd talk about core books that translate to laying-out a solid physical database implementation & tuning for performance, but thats gonna have to wait till maybe a future book review
cheers.
-------

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"Riordan covers core skills for any developer--database design and development--in a perfect amount of detail. This book should be on every professional developer's reading list."--Duncan Mackenzie, developer, Microsoft (MSDN)"Designing a database is not a trivial subject. Riordan brings experience and clear explanations to a fundamental part of software development."--Patrick Birch, database and technical writing consultant"If you buy only one book on database design, make it this one. Riordan has a talent for explaining technical issues in simple language, without over simplifying."--Brendan Reynolds, developer, Dataset IT Systems and Microsoft Access MVP"A book that will expertly guide you in how to develop a database for a client-- and how to do it right the first time!"--Kenneth D. Snell, Ph.D., ACCESS developer and Microsoft Access MVP "Riordan has produced a unique book that brings together a formal, yet commonsense, approach to relational database design...and then goes further! Many database designers will find immense value in the steps to developing practical data warehouse designs.If you are seeking a framework for designing transactional databases, or want to step out into the world of analytical databases, Riordan's book excels at bridging both worlds."--Paul Irvine, vice president, engineering, Via Training"Riordan takes a complex subject and makes it easy. If you're over your head on a database design project, this book will help bail you out!"--Mike Gunderloy, contributing editor, Application Development Trends"This book covers a wide range of database design and data modeling topics in a well-organized, easy to understand format."--Amy Sticksel, Sticksel Data Systems, Inc."In Designing Effective Database Systems, Riordan's style, wit, and attention to detail are outstanding."--Sandra Daigle, Microsoft Access MVP The Software Developer's Step-by-Step Guide to Database Design World-renowned expert Rebecca M. Riordan has written the definitive database design book for working developers who aren't database experts. No matter how messy or complex your data challenge, Designing Effective Database Systems shows you how to design an effective, high-performance database to solve it.Riordan begins by thoroughly demystifying the principles of relational design, making them accessible to every professional developer.Next, she offers the field's clearest introduction to dimensional database modeling--practical insight for designing today's increasingly important analytical applications. One task at a time, the author illuminates every facet of database analysis and design for both traditional databases and the dimensional databases used for data warehousing, showing how to avoid common architectural pitfalls that complicate development and reduce extensibility. The book concludes with comprehensive, expert guidance on designing databases for maximum usability.This book will teach you to *Understand relational database models, structures, relationships, and data integrity principles *Define database system goals, criteria, scope, and work processes *Construct accurate conceptual models: relationships, entities, domain analysis, and normalization *Build efficient, secure database schema *Master the elements of online analytical processing (OLAP) design: fact tables, dimension tables, snowflaking, and more *Architect and construct easy, efficient interfaces for querying and reporting *Learn from practice examples based on Microsoft's Northwind sample databaseRiordan has helped thousands of professionals master database design and development, earning Microsoft's coveted MVP honor for her exceptional contributions.Nobody is more qualified to help you master database design and apply it in your real-world environment.

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Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is not intended as a comprehensive/blow-by-blow tutorial. It is a part of o'reilly's new 'notebook' series which is intended as a VERY brief intro to a new technology for experienced developers.
This book is for folks who are pretty experienced with Java and databases, and its intention is to provide a very high-level fast-paced into to hibernate.
In my opinion, it does these things well. I've got about 9 years experience with Java, and about 15 years with SQL/databases, and about 15 years commercial development experience. I've never used hibernate, and I decided to use it in a project. I'm in a HUGE hurry, and I needed to get up to speed FAST. This book got me there. In this sense, I think the book succeeds very well.
There are plenty of spots where I needed additional help, and a quick web search or a quick jump out to hibernates reference documentation (hibernate.org) was all that was required.
This book does what it intends. If you need hand-holding, detailed instructions, or in-depth tutorials, find another book. (And as far as I know, there aren't any).
:)

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Do you enjoy writing software, except for the database code? Hibernate:A Developer's Notebook is for you.

Database experts may enjoy fiddling with SQL, but you don't have to--the rest of the application is the fun part. And even database experts dread the tedious plumbing and typographical spaghetti needed to put their SQL into a Java program. Hibernate: A Developers Notebook shows you how to use Hibernate to automate persistence: you write natural Java objects and some simple configuration files, and Hibernate automates all the interaction between your objects and the database.You don't even need to know the database is there, and you can change from one database to another simply by changing a few statements in a configuration file.

Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook walks you through the ins and outs of using Hibernate, from installation and configuration, to complex associations and composite types. Two chapters explore ways to write sophisticated queries, which you can express either through a pure Java API, or with an SQL-inspired, but object-oriented, query language. Don't let that intimidate you though: one of the biggest surprises in working with Hibernate is that for many of the common real-world application scenarios, you don't need an explicit query at all.

If you've needed to add a database backend to your application, don't put it off.It's much more fun than it used to be, and Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook shows you why.

Here's what a few reviewers had to say:

"I'm sitting on an airplane after finishing Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook.It's rare to find a book on a new Java technology that you can get through on a domestic flight.That this notebook effectively and succinctly tackles object-relational mapping makes it, and Hibernate, even more impressive.Many books in this category would need to be checked luggage.With this book, you travel first class." --Mike Clark

"A simple persistence framework deserves a simple book, and this one delivers. The examples are well described and easy to understand, yet sophisticated enough to demonstrate Hibernate in a real-world context. Jim, I'm a new fan."--Bruce Tate

About the new Developer's Notebook Series from O'Reilly: Developer's Notebooks are a new book series covering important new tools for software developers.Developer's Notebooks stress example over explanation and practice over theory. They are about learning by doing; by experimenting with tools and discovering what works."All lab, no lecture," with a thoughtful lab partner to guide the way.

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An Introduction to Data Structures and Algorithms (Progress in Theoretical Computer Science) Review

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(More customer reviews)If you have cut your teeth on Donald Knuth's classic three volumes, "The Art of Computer Programming", and you want more detail, at a similar level of complexity, then consider Storer's book.
It delves into lists, recursion, trees, graphs, heaps and sets. Like Knuth, Storer thoughtfully supplies an extensive list of questions at the end of each chapter that will greatly deepen your appreciation of the field if you tackle them. Ok, he doesn't give answers, but think of that as greater incentive on your part to solve them. There are almost 400 questions in the book.
The teaching style is similar to Knuth, in that it has all the rigour needed by an algorithm designer like yourself, without drowning you in epsilon-delta ultra rigour like a pure maths text.
Note that the only code fragments are in pseudocode. This should not be a problem for you. I am assuming you are experienced enough that what you need is understanding of an algorithm, and that manually converting it to code is straightforward and a purely secondary issue.
The take home message is that this is excellent for anyone doing serious programming.

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Data structures and algorithms are presented at the college level in a highly accessible format that presents material with one-page displays in a way that will appeal to both teachers and students. The thirteen chapters cover: Models of Computation, Lists, Induction and Recursion, Trees, Algorithm Design, Hashing, Heaps, Balanced Trees, Sets Over a Small Universe, Graphs, Strings, Discrete Fourier Transform, Parallel Computation. Key features: Complicated concepts are expressed clearly in a single page with minimal notation and without the "clutter" of the syntax of a particular programming language; algorithms are presented with self-explanatory "pseudo-code." * Chapters 1-4 focus on elementary concepts, the exposition unfolding at a slower pace. Sample exercises with solutions are provided. Sections that may be skipped for an introductory course are starred. Requires only some basic mathematics background and some computer programming experience. * Chapters 5-13 progress at a faster pace. The material is suitable for undergraduates or first-year graduates who need only review Chapters 1 -4. * This book may be used for a one-semester introductory course (based on Chapters 1-4 and portions of the chapters on algorithm design, hashing, and graph algorithms) and for a one-semester advanced course that starts at Chapter 5. A year-long course may be based on the entire book. * Sorting, often perceived as rather technical, is not treated as a separate chapter, but is used in many examples (including bubble sort, merge sort, tree sort, heap sort, quick sort, and several parallel algorithms). Also, lower bounds on sorting by comparisons are included with the presentation of heaps in the context of lower bounds for comparison-based structures. * Chapter 13 on parallel models of computation is something of a mini-book itself, and a good way to end a course. Although it is not clear what parallel

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Data Structures and Algorithms in Java (2nd Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an excellent book on data structures and algorithms and would be a great addition to a student's text book. Fortunately Lafore does not dwell on the algorithm analysis as many data structures books do. This is a plus for me, as most texts on the subject get the reader bogged down in the analysis portion of the subject matter. Note: algorithm analysis is a very important subject I just don't believe it should be taught in parallel with data structures to the extent it is. Its easier for me and many others to first learn how to implement data structures and get a feel for their performance then move on to in-depth analysis.
In this book you'll learn the more important data structures without the heavy mathematics many algorithm and data structure books torture readers with. The book is written in very accessible language and the applets really help the inexperienced see the algorithms in action.
As I mentioned this book does not cover algorithm analysis in detail. A step up from this book would be one of Sedgewick's books which provides more detail on the analysis front and some really 'tight' implementations. A good book that focuses on Algorithm Analysis is Intro to Algorithms by Cormen. You better have your math skills up to snuff for the Cormen book however.

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Data Structures and Algorithms in Java, Second Edition is designed to be easy to read and understand although the topic itself is complicated. Algorithms are the procedures that software programs use to manipulate data structures. Besides clear and simple example programs, the author includes a workshop as a small demonstration program executable on a Web browser. The programs demonstrate in graphical form what data structures look like and how they operate. In the second edition, the program is rewritten to improve operation and clarify the algorithms, the example programs are revised to work with the latest version of the Java JDK, and questions and exercises will be added at the end of each chapter making the book evenmore useful.Educational SupplementSuggested solutions to the programming projects found at the end of each chapter are made available to instructors at recognized educational institutions. This educational supplement can be found at www.prenhall.com, in the Instructor Resource Center.

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Professional Java Data: RDBMS, JDBC, SQLJ, OODBMS, JNDI, LDAP, Servlets, JSP, WAP, XML, EJBs, CMP2.0, JDO, Transactions, Performance, Scalability, Object and Data Modeling Review

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(More customer reviews)For the past 2 years Wrox has been publishing books dedicated to Windows-based data access (ADO etc.), but the same cannot be said about their Java/database collection. Although you find chapters on JDBC scattered all-over almost all server-side Java related books by Wrox, there was no single volume from them that teaches JDBC first, and then show how it is used by the newer dependent technologies, until this book arrived. After looking through this book, I must say the authors and editors have done a rather commendable job.
Why do I make the above conclusion? Let me give you my general impression of the book first. A theme repeated in several of my recent reviews on books from Wrox is about the problem in coherence associated with multi-author books. Well, having more than a dozen of authors for a single book seems to be a fact of life (for books from Wrox at least) now, as the publication cycle gets shorter. I was rather surprised to find out that the organization and coherence is very good in this book, i.e., there is very little overlap among chapters. Also, this books uses JDBC cleverly to tie other pieces of J2EE together, making smooth transitions from one chapter to another. If you want to know, this factor alone prompted me to add an extra star to the overall rating of the book.
Let's now run down the chapters of this book quickly. The first 115 pages deals object-oriented and database modeling, and can be skipped by any "Professional" developer. Then after your obligatory intro to JDBC API, the next chapter covers the JDBC 2.0 optional package. This is the best treatment of this topic I have seen. Then another chapter is all about SQLJ, another first. The effort of having a chapter on database performance should be lauded, where connection pooling, prepared statements and stored procedures usage are demoed. The reminder of the book is about applying JDBC in various J2EE components, such as JSP, servlets, EJB, JMS, and XML. For this part of the book, even though I accept the fact the proper stage has to be set for each one of them, I still don't believe the book found the right balance between focusing on JDBC and showing what these other technologies are about. A large number of pages are used to teach basic JNDI, servlets, JSP's, and EJB's stuff (remember there is already a book on J2EE from Wrox!). Therefore, it is up to the reader to discover the real nuggets of gold hidden in this pile, which are far and in between in places. I found that some critical issues are not highlighted or details are lacking, such as how to use connection pooling/data sources in servlets, JSP's, and EJB's, the threading issues related to sharing database connections, and good database practices in BMP EJB's. However, the one thing I cannot complain about is that the book did not forget to teach the transaction aspect of EJB with a good depth (there is a short ans sweet chapter on using JTA/JTS inside EJB). There is also a chapter on the brand-new JDO framework, even though the spec is still in a state of flux. Finally, there are 4 case study chapters in the book - although the design and implementation are limited in scope and as a whole those samples do not teach all you need to do know about enterprise scale J2EE system development, they do provide a flavor of how JDBC is used in real world, together with setting up Tomcat, JRun, Orion, and WebLogic to access MS SQL Server and Oracle databases.
Now my overall take of this book. For VB/SQL and pure back-end PL/SQL developers who are eager to jump on the Java express train and need a suitable platform (especially for the ones who learn best from playing with actual code), I recommend this book as one of several you should own. Compared to other JDBC books from say O'Reilly and Sun's JDBC Tutorial, this book is the most up-to-date, contains the most source code, and has the broadest coverage of related topics. But keep in mind some of the advanced topics such as EJB and JMS can be intimidating for new-comers. On the other side of the coin, people who are advanced in various server-side Java technologies are unlikely to benefit a great deal from this book and should look elsewhere for info (for example Wrox's J2EE and upcoming EJB titles).

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Java provides versatile technologies for data access and manipulation. This book investigates these technologies in detail and shows how they can be used to develop robust enterprise applications. The book is divided into five sections, the first of which looks at data and object modeling. The second section investigates accessing data in relational and object oriented databases, and directory services. The focus of the following section is data presentation for web clients. The fourth section covers Enterprise JavaBeans and distributed applications. The last section of the book consists of four real-world case studies that build on the previous chapters of the book. Transactions, performance, and scalability of data applications are also discussed throughout the book.

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Developing Software with UML: Object-Oriented Analysis and Design in Practice (2nd Edition) Review

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(More customer reviews)Surely this book is not the absolute reference for the UML. Someone seeking for such a book, should check up on: "The Unified Modeling Language User Guide", "The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual" both by the 3 amigos, and "UML Distilled, Second Ed." by Martin Fowler et al.
I gave 5 stars because, to my opinion, the author has catched the main need of someone who uses the UML for the first time; to design/develop software. Formalizations and abstractions are absolutely necessary in real applications, but really destructing during the first steps simply because anything usefull is interspersed in several chapters. On the other hand, the coverage of both the UML and the OO S/W development in this book is definitely not shallow.
"Developing Software with UML" is perhaps the best choise for beginning with UML. It is well-structured, intuitive and easy.

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Practical guide to exploiting the power of Object Technology & UML in your software development process.

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Object-Oriented Discrete-Event Simulation with Java - A Practical Introduction (SERIES IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS (previously: The Plenum Series in Computer (Series in Computer Science) Review

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(More customer reviews)Some of the concepts were new to me and some were not. The old ideas were the ones that I came across in a first Java programming course or in a discrete-event simulation course. Book is easy to read, concise, not a textbook. Useful for someone that has not studied anything about discrete-event simulation.

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This book introduces the application of the Java programminglanguage in discrete-event simulation. In addition, the fundamentalconcepts and practical simulation techniques for modeling differenttypes of systems to study their general behavior and their performanceare introduced. The approaches applied are the process interactionapproach to discrete-event simulation and object-oriented modeling.Java is used as the implementation language and UML as the modelinglanguage. The first offers several advantages compared to C++, themost important being thread handling, graphical user interfaces (GUI),and Web computing. The second language, UML (Unified ModelingLanguage), is the standard notation used today for modeling systems asa collection of classes, class relationships, objects, and objectbehavior. The book concentrates on object-oriented modeling andimplementation aspects of simulation models using Java and practicalsimulation techniques. In addition, the book illustrates the dynamicbehavior of systems using the various simulation models as casestudies.

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Enterprise JavaBeans, Fourth Edition Review

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(More customer reviews)I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Every chapter was excellent.
The book starts with a chapter that explains distributed objects, components, server-side components, and transaction monitors in a way that makes total sense and is fun to read.
The next couple of chapters give you an in-depth look at the EJB architecture removing all the mystery from the technology -- these chapters are pure gold.
Chapters 3 through 7 show how to develop stateless, stateful, CMP and BMP entity beans. These chapters explain how to write beans and how to use them. The examples are very excellent.
Chapter 8 is a very long but necessary chapter on transactions and how they work in EJB. I'm glad they saved this for after Chapters 3 -7 because it's complicated.
Chapter 9 is a priceless Design Strategies chapter that gives you more punch in the first 10 pages then most books give in 100. Even experienced EJB developers will learn new tricks from this chapter.
Chapter 10 is on XML deployment descriptors. This is an excellent reference and the way its organized makes it much simpler to understand.
Chapter 11 covers J2EE. It's short but excellent. The author tells you exactly how EJB fits into J2EE, which is all I wanted to know.
Appendix A - D are an invaluable reference for developers. They include a complete class reference, UML state diagrams and charts, vendor listing and finally a summary of the changes from EJB 1.0 to EJB 1.1.
This is the best EJB book available and will continue to be the best for a long time. Its too solid and too well organized not to be.

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The new 2.1 version of the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) spec extends its support for web services and the Java Web Services APIs, expands its asynchronous messaging support, adds XML Schema for deployment descriptors, and introduces a new Timer service, which allows for scheduling EJB jobs. The essential--and award winning--book on EJBs, Enterprise JavaBeans, has been completely revised and updated in this new fourth edition, to provide the real-world, nitty-gritty detail developers need to master EJB 2.1.

Previous editions of this clear and engaging introduction to EJBs were voted the "Best Java Book" by the editors and readers of Java Developer's Journal, the "Best Java Book for Experts," by JavaPro editors, and one of theTop Computer Booksby Amazon.com. The fourth edition lives up to--and surpasses--the excellent reputation earned by its predecessors.

This authoritative and thorough guide includes everything that made previous editions the singlemust-havebook for EJB developers: the authors solid grasp on the complexities of EJBs coupled with his succinct, easy-to-follow style; hundreds of clear, practical examples; adept coverage the key concepts EJBs ; and diagrams to illustrate the concepts presented. It also includes everything you need to get up to speed quickly on the changes wrought by EJB version 2.1, an architecture overview, information on resource management and primary services, design strategies, and XML deployment descriptors.

In this edition, we're adding an EJB workbook for JBoss 4.0.The workbook shows how to deploy all of the examples on the JBoss 4.0 application server.It addresses an important problem with EJB: deploying the software on a server can be extremely difficult.JBoss is an open source project that has become the most widely used J2EE application server.

Good technical authors may lay the facts before you, but great ones offer the distilled essence of their own experience and insight. Richard Monson-Haefel has provided just what Java developers need to know to harness the complexity of EJBs. What makes Monson-Haefel a master of technical authoring can be seen in his well-thought-out and logical progression of ideas, and in his examples practical, precise, usable examples, large enough to test key concepts but still small enough to be comprehensible taken apart and explained in the detail you need to deploy those principles in other situations.

If you work with EJBs--or want to--this book will earn a favored spot on your bookshelf.

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SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming (Pragmatic Programmers) Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently got a new job and inherited a vast collection of SQL queries to maintain. Reading Karwin's book has been a tremendous help! Each chapter considers a particular design issue ("How can I store more than one value in a field?") and shows the most common, flawed method (the "antipattern"). He carefully explains the disadvantages, then usually shows several other ways to accomplish the same goal.
One of the things I like best about the book is that the analysis isn't black and white. Every methods has advantages and disadvantages, which Karwin carefully unpacks. He also reviews and clarifies relational theory as he goes: his discussion of "Null" is a masterpiece. In general, he favors solutions that don't subvert the basic principles of relational database theory.
This would not be a good book to try to learn SQL or Database theory from, but if you are just starting to get some real-world experience it is a Godsend. Highly Recommended.

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Each chapter in this book helps you identify, explain, and correct a unique and dangerous antipattern. The four parts of the book group the anti​patterns in terms of logical database design, physical database design, queries, and application development. The chances are good that your application's database layer already contains problems such as Index Shotgun, Keyless Entry, Fear of the Unknown, and Spaghetti Query. This book will help you and your team find them. Even better, it will also show you how to fix them, and how to avoid these and other problems in the future. SQL Antipatterns gives you a rare glimpse into an SQL expert's playbook. Now you can stamp out these common database errors once and for all. Whatever platform or programming language you use, whether you're a junior programmer or a Ph.D., SQL Antipatterns will show you how to design and build databases, how to write better database queries, and how to integrate SQL programming with your application like an expert. You'll also learn the best and most current technology for full-text search, how to design code that is resistant to SQL injection attacks, and other techniques for success.

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Eclipse Modeling Framework Review

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(More customer reviews)If you have used Eclipse to program Java, you might have gotten comfortable with its capabilities. Very intuitive and kindly donated by IBM to open source. So when I opened this book, I anticipated oodles of helpful tweaks and shortcuts.
But not so. IBM has indeed provided these in the book. But their goals were far more ambitious. The Eclipse Modelling Framework is a serious effort to incorporate into a development environment java, XML and UML. They found, perhaps correctly, that most Java programmers, including, and maybe especially the experienced ones, don't really use UML much. Okay, as an afterthought, to document a code base upon a major release. But rarely as a starting point. So one intent is to seamlessly let java programmers incorporate UML. More strongly, they claim that EMF lets you define a model in any of java, XML or UML. Then simply clicking a button will make EMF generate the other 2 forms. The greatest payoff for this is that it lets programmers, who may not be fluent in UML, make a graphical UML model and thence have EMF make the java code stubs. Much less error prone than doing it manually.
There is an analogy here with Spice, if any of you have an electrical engineering background. Until the late 80s, if you wanted to model a circuit in Spice, you typically drew it by hand on paper. Then you manually transcribed these into a text file of netlists that was input into Spice. Slow and very error prone. Then along came MicroSim, Carver Mead's Magic program and others, that let you construct a circuit diagram on a console, and from which you could press a button and a Spice input file would be made. Much more productive.
The book offers a similar gain in productivity. All you are asked to risk is your time in understanding the book.

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EMF is a powerful framework and code generation facility for building Java applications based on simple model definitions. Designed to make modeling practical and useful to the mainstream Java programmer, EMF unifies three important technologies: Java, XML, and UML. Models can either be defined using a UML modeling tool, an XML Schema, or by specifying simple annotations on Java interfaces whereby programmers write the abstract interfaces (a small subset of what they would normally need to write), and the rest is generated automatically and merged back into their existing code. This book thoroughly describes EMF and shows how EMF-based modeling is a foundation for fine-grained interoperability and data sharing among tools and applications. The authors provide a basic overview of the most important concepts in EMF and modeling as well as clear explanations with step-by-step instructions for defining EMF models. This book shows how the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) has successfully bridged the gap between modelers and Java programmers.It serves as a gentle introduction to modeling for Java programmers and at the same time as a reinforcement of the modeler's theory that plenty of Java coding can be automated, given an appropriate tool.

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Advanced ANSI SQL Data Modeling and Structure Processing Review

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(More customer reviews)Ever since i read this book first in a library in Atlanta, I coudlnt hold myself but buy this book immediately the following week.
Excellent description on data modelling, and has clear diagrams that are easy to understand.
a must have for all serious sql data modelling guys and programmers..

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This volume is a tool for utilizing the ANSI/ISO SQL outer join operation, and a guide to using this operation to perform simple or complex data modelling. It provides a look at the outer join operation, its powerful syntax, and features and capabilities that can be developed based on the operation's data modelling capacity. The author demonstrates how to tap into the power of data structure extraction technology that gathers data structure meta information naturally embedded in ANSI/ISO SQL outer join specifications. He also addresses existing SQL capabilities for improving performance, saving coding time, simplifying design, and reducing debugging time. The book also supplied critical review of the semantics of data structures; tells you how to perform multi-table outer joins and how to combine relational structures with hierarchical structures; and describes how to establish a default database standard or framework for data modelling.

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Modeling XML Applications with UML: Practical e-Business Applications Review

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(More customer reviews)I just picked up "XML/UML" and am ecstatic!! I have to thank Dave for putting all of this practical info together. It is what I was so desperatly looking for. From all the dozens of books I've purused at the bookstores I can say this is the ONLY high level book about XML apps on the market. This book takes one beyond modelling and into the belly of the beast of real world application production.
I've looked at (and unfortunetly purchased) some of those tomes which are 3x the size but yet contained only 1/100th of the "actionable knowledge". I've even taken the Microsoft course "1905: Building XML Apps" but found it to be a bunch of *bs*. While it was a good primer who in the world is going to build a eCommerce app strictly with the DOM & XSLT??? The same is true of all the XML training tutorials on the web. But in all fairness all that other material just primed me for this book and the "grand schema" of things (pun intended).
Creating XML apps is much more than understanding XML/XSLT syntax, it's a high level architecture which is more complex than many of the web apps out there today. It was finally this book, which has modeled and integrated all the diverse concepts, which has allowed me to get my head around "how do I create, integrate and manage all the components surrounding XML". This isn't a beginners book but rather one for the person who is looking to weave various application protocols together and make a serious step forward with building the next generation apps today. These apps take a tremendous pooling of knowledge and resources and this book will put you and your team on the right path with the architecture & technology.
If you have some knowldege of XML & UML then this book will help you to take that to the next level of integration and more importantly, production. You don't just learn abstract "how-to's" but rather "how-to" in the context of a real project. Starting with assembling your team, working through UML models and transfering this into XML vocabularies and designing a "portal" from there. You then go through linking, validating and transforming your data and end up with a chapter on deployment options. What makes this so nice is that it all revolves around a single case study so you see how the overall process develops and flows.
The companion website is an excellent source not only for the code and updates but for all manner of info pertaining to XMl & UML.
Trust me... if you are into XML then you need it. This is THE book which will turn the tide for XML from industry hypeware into workable systems.

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XML is rapidly becoming the standard platform for delivering e-Business information and integrating e-Business systems. XML developers desperately need mature software development processes and tools for developing effective applications. David Carlson fills the gap, showing exactly how to leverage the worldwide UML standard for modeling complex systems in advanced XML development. In Modeling XML Applications with UML, he presents the first comprehensive framework for modeling communications in any B2B software system. Carlson presents in-depth coverage of UML-based analysis, design, and modeling of XML content within e-Business environments. The book includes detailed coverage of using UML to support the creation of new XML-based B2B vocabularies and industry portals that reflect the requirements of several key stakeholder communities, including consumers, business analysts, web application specialists, system integration specialists, and content developers. Carlson presents several B2B use cases, and then decomposes them into scenarios illustrated with class diagrams, sequence diagrams, and activity diagrams showing how XML fits into an overall e-Business solution.Each chapter concludes with "steps for success" that distill UML's general principles into specific recommendations for action.

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Software Modeling and Design: UML, Use Cases, Patterns, and Software Architectures Review

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(More customer reviews)If you want to learn to use UML as a communication tool on your software development projects, this is the book too own. It contains a ton of examples and covers every aspect of the UML you will need to know to successfully use it on your projects.
The book starts out with an introduction to software architecture and object oriented analysis and design with UML.
There is then a short chapter on UML notation, a chapter on software development processes, and one on software design and architectural concepts. The last chapter in part one introduces COMET (Collaborative Object Modeling and Architectural Design Method), which is the author's software modeling and design method.
To me COMET is not really that much different than the Unified Process, which is a great process. COMET just breaks out the testing activities a little differently. COMET is a very usable process and if used correctly should lead to successful software development projects.
Part two of the book is all about modeling. There is a chapter on Use Case Modeling, Static Modeling, Object and Class Structuring, Dynamic Interaction Modeling, Finite State Machines, and State-Dependent Dynamic Interaction Modeling.
By the time you are done with part two of this book you will know all you need to know to produce high quality diagrams that can be used between the different stakeholders on your projects as very effective communication tools.
Part three of the book covers software architecture. There is a chapter on the Overview of Software Architecture, Software Subsystem Architectural Design, Designing Object-Oriented Software Architectures, Designing Client/Server Software Architectures, Designing Service-Oriented Architectures, Designing Component-Based Software Architectures, Designing Concurrent and Real-Time Software Architectures, Designing Software Product Line Architectures, and a chapter on Software Quality Attributes.
If the chapter on Software Product Lines interests you, I would highly recommend buying the author's book tilted Designing Software Product Lines with UML: From Use Cases to Pattern-Based Software Architectures.
I really the like the way part two introduces the different perspectives you need to have when considering the type of architecture you are building. The way the author accomplishes this is unique to this book. I have not seen it broken down this way before, and it really provides some great insight.
Part three contains several case studies. Each one provides a detailed design of the system being discussed. These are great for seeing how well the design techniques in this book work. You get a complete understanding of each of the systems in the case studies by the time you are done reading the chapter.
This book is really well written and organized. You can read it from front to back or use it as a reference. Each chapter ends with exercise questions. I usually just ignore these, but since the author has decided to include the answers I enjoyed trying to answer them.
The book has an appendix which contains a nice catalog of software architectural patterns. It is a summary of architectural structure patterns, communication patterns, and transaction patterns. It contains a summary of the pattern and the location it is used in the book.
All in all this is a very high quality book packed with very valuable information any architect at an level of experience will benefit from. Hi highly recommend this book!!!!

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This book covers all you need to know to model and design software applications from use cases to software architectures in UML and shows how to apply the COMET UML-based modeling and design method to real-world problems. The author describes architectural patterns for various architectures, such as broker, discovery, and transaction patterns for service-oriented architectures, and addresses software quality attributes including maintainability, modifiability, testability, traceability, scalability, reusability, performance, availability, and security.Complete case studies illustrate design issues for different software architectures: a banking system for client/server architecture, an online shopping system for service-oriented architecture, an emergency monitoring system for component-based software architecture, and an automated guided vehicle for real-time software architecture.Organized as an introduction followed by several short, self-contained chapters, the book is perfect for senior undergraduate or graduate courses in software engineering and design, and for experienced software engineers wanting a quick reference at each stage of the analysis, design, and development of large-scale software systems.

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