Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2 From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Wanted-- database introductory book Message-ID: <89262.133555UH2@PSUVM.BITNET> Date: 19 Sep 89 17:35:55 GMT References: <1583@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl> Organization: Penn State University Lines: 16 On the topic of good intro books, be aware that there are at least three distinct *types* of book. 1. The Computer Science book (e.g. Ullman). The book you want to read if you plan to build a new database system, that is, you want to compete against Oracle, Unify, DB2, etc. 2. The Information Systems book (e.g. Kroenke and Dolan, Loomis, Pratt and Adamsky). The book to read if you plan to implement a database application using a commercial DBMS such as Oracle, Unify, DB2, etc. 3. Trade books. Most of the books you can buy at a bookstore in the Mall. These boooks tend to focus too narrowly on DBase, Paradox, and RBase, and usually give very bad general advice about how to build a quality database application. These books can be useful supplements to the vendor manual, however.