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Foundations of Databases (1995)

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Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#31

Post by macando »

vishnugupta wrote: post #28
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…

Copy pasting my comment[1] from an earlier thread. A couple of years ago I spent quite some time trying to evaluate the tech stack (and general engineering culture) of merger/acquisition targets of my employer. It was quite a fun exercise, all said and done. I encountered all sorts; from a small team start up who had their tech sorted out more or less to a largish organisation who relied on IBM's ESB which exactly on…

> I politely interrupted them and asked for DB schema.

In order of importance:

1. DB schema

2. List of dependancies

3. List of 3rd party integrations

Depending on the domain, 2. and 3. can be switched.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#32

Post by dudeman13 »

jenkstom wrote: post #23

We don't need "more theory". The vast majority of computer science theory goes unapplied in solving real-world problems. While I'm sure this is great for postgrad computer science students, it's not very useful for the every day programmers out there.

>We don't need "more theory". The vast majority of computer science theory goes unapplied in solving real-world problems

The sheer amount of rewriting that is being done every day around the world because people didn't bother understanding what they were doing (and how they should have thought more before trying to make it work) disagrees with this.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#33

Post by victor106 »

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."

Genuinely curious: What are some challenges with using distributed databases?

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#34

Post by macintux »

vishnugupta wrote: post #28
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…

Copy pasting my comment[1] from an earlier thread. A couple of years ago I spent quite some time trying to evaluate the tech stack (and general engineering culture) of merger/acquisition targets of my employer. It was quite a fun exercise, all said and done. I encountered all sorts; from a small team start up who had their tech sorted out more or less to a largish organisation who relied on IBM's ESB which exactly on…

Many years ago, my employer was transitioning ERP systems from...something CA-owned whose name escapes me and I'd probably have pretty awful memories dredged up if I actually went looking for it.

Anyway, we were lucky enough to have a very talented intern who was assigned the task of understanding the database schema behind the CA product in order to migrate our data to the new system.

It was...horrific. Absolute nightmare of spaghetti. I'd like to say I've seen worse, but I've never seen anything even in the same ballpark.

I think we finally gave up after weeks of digging into it and just started over with a mostly clean slate.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#35

Post by e12e »

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 foundationdb documentation (and source) might be worth looking at? https://apple.github.io/foundationdb/

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#36

Post by ggambetta »

jenkstom wrote: post #23

We don't need "more theory". The vast majority of computer science theory goes unapplied in solving real-world problems. While I'm sure this is great for postgrad computer science students, it's not very useful for the every day programmers out there.

...and this is how we ended with NoSQL.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#38

Post by alistairw »

rgbimbochamp wrote: post #12

Plugging in Andy Pavlo's Database lectures @ CMU which are completely free on Youtube. Great guy and great lectures.

Agreed. I finished watching them at the start of this year and it's significantly helped me in using and making choices about databases. I've also since started implementing my own database for learning off the back of them. Couldn't be more grateful for those courses being public.

link if anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/oeYBdghaIjc

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#39

Post by biggestdummy »

victor106 wrote: post #33
throwaway823882 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Genuinely curious: What are some challenges with using distributed databases?

Tons of complexity behind this, but the simple problem is source of truth. When you store data in multiple places, if they become unsynchronized, which is the true answer??? Within a monolithic system, you don't have differing clocks, network partitions that can be very weird, etc. And, a related problem, which is race conditions. What if you are reading one copy of the data while the other replica is being updated. Most complexity, imo, arises from this fundamental problem and the various techniques to deal with it.

Re: Foundations of Databases (1995)

#40

Post by convolvatron »

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)?

I got alot of value out of

  Distributed Databases: Principles and Systems
  Stefano Ceri, Giuseppe Pelagatti
  McGraw-Hill, 1985
it adopts a very specific approach, and is obviously missing some newer techniques, but it certainly leaves you with a feeling of 'yeah, i can build this'
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