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Foundations of Databases (1995)

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Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#11

Post by msluyter »

macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

To wit: I made it through a master's in CS without a database class.

This reminds me of the famous Rob Pike quote:

"Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming."

I've often found that if I'm coding something and the code starts looking increasingly gnarly, that rethinking the data structures / data model will clean up the code.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#13

Post by achn »

macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

This is very true, but also a hugely unfortunate reality. It amazes me that we have reached this far with “object” graph oriented data models backed with relational DBs. They are very seldom conducive to one another.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#14

Post by AlphaSite »

msluyter wrote: post #11
macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

To wit: I made it through a master's in CS without a database class. This reminds me of the famous Rob Pike quote: "Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming." I've often found that if I'm coding something and the code starts looking increasingly gnarly, that rethi…

Although it says data structures, isn’t it more important to talk about the structure of the data than the choice of data structure?

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#15

Post by bshipp »

msluyter wrote: post #11
macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

To wit: I made it through a master's in CS without a database class. This reminds me of the famous Rob Pike quote: "Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming." I've often found that if I'm coding something and the code starts looking increasingly gnarly, that rethi…

every one of my data scraping projects is littered with files titled "database.db.bak1", "database.db.bak2".... for this exact reason. "Oh I scraped 1000 pages and realized I missed an entire nested data structure....better blow away the dB and try again.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#16

Post by gautamdivgi »

msluyter wrote: post #11
macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

To wit: I made it through a master's in CS without a database class. This reminds me of the famous Rob Pike quote: "Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming." I've often found that if I'm coding something and the code starts looking increasingly gnarly, that rethi…

We had two books when I was doing my bachelors in CS many moons ago (late 90's). One was by Silberschatz & Galvin and the other by Ullman. The first one was used for relational algebra, various normal forms and introducing table design, keys, constraints,etc. The second was used to teach the theory for internals on how a DB is implemented - B+ trees, deadlock handling, etc, etc. That was a hard course and it was mandatory.

I can see not electing to have databases as a course for masters though. Masters is to allow you to specialize and be more choice driven.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#17

Post by andrewl »

msluyter wrote: post #11
macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

To wit: I made it through a master's in CS without a database class. This reminds me of the famous Rob Pike quote: "Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming." I've often found that if I'm coding something and the code starts looking increasingly gnarly, that rethi…

On that topic, Fred Brooks, author of The Mythical Man Month, said "Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious."

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#18

Post by bshipp »

throwaway823882 wrote: post #9
anonymousDan wrote: post #2

Anyone recommend a good book specifically on distributed databases (not more general distributed systems stuff like e.g. klepmann's DDIA)?

Not a book, but I would add to the foreword: "Try not to use them."

This is a valid comment that I'd expand to say "...without exhausting all the tools available."

For example, if you're facing lengthy search queries and are looking at partitioning the database to speed them up, many databases include helpful internal tools that should be attempted first. Proper indexing is a textbook all on it's own, and the appropriate design of full-text search dictionaries and queries is another.

The one that shocked me a year or two ago was implementing full-text search in a gigantic sqlite DB. I was preparing to migrate it to postgresql or elasticsearch because my traditional "ilike" queries, even indexed, were ridiculously slow, and I was not aware FTS was an included library.

Although FTS pretty much doubled the size of the DB, a three minute query dropped to a few seconds. Since read queries are non-blocking in sqlite, this allowed me to continue using the DB without needing a bigger, more complex solution.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#20

Post by adamnemecek »

macando wrote: post #10

It's incredible how little attention is paid to data modeling and querying in the education of people entering the software engineering workforce. Getting your database model right, on the logical and physical level, will make developing and deploying any data-driven app simpler and easier. Getting it wrong? No modern programming language or architectural pattern will save you from the worst kinds of bugs, workaround…

> this or any other legendary DB book.

What are the other legendary DB books?

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