Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals / Edition 1

by Lex deHaan, Toon Koppelaars

Overview

Now available in paperback—

Relational databases hold data, right? They do indeed, but to think of a database as nothing more than a container for data is to miss out on the profound power that underlies relational technology. A far more powerful way of thinking lies in relational technology's foundation in the mathematical disciplines of logic and set theory.

Databases contain truths or propositions describing some area of interest such as a business. Those truths are organized into sets. Operations from logic and set theory can be applied to existing sets of truths to derive new sets of truths. Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals introduces you to this way of thinking, to the logic and set theory that underlies relational database technology. All this may sound abstract now, but there are profound benefits from the deeper understanding you'll gain from this book.

The math that you'll learn in this book will put you above the level of understanding of most database professionals today. You'll better understand the technology and be able to apply it more effectively. You'll avoid data anomalies like redundancy and inconsistency. Understanding what's in this book will take your mastery of relational technology to heights you may not have thought possible.

This book is reviewed and endorsed by C. J. Date and features a foreword by the same.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781430242840
Publisher:	Apress
Publication date:	12/20/2011
Edition description:	1st ed.
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lex de Haan studied applied mathematics at the University of Technology in Delft, the Netherlands. His experience with Oracle goes back to the mid-1980s, version 4. He worked for Oracle Corporation from 1990 to 2004 in various education-related roles, ending up in Server Technologies (product development) as senior curriculum manager for the advanced database administration curriculum. In that role, he was involved in the development of Oracle9i and Oracle Database 10g. In March 2004, he decided to go independent and founded Natural Join B.V. (http://www.naturaljoin.nl). From 1999 until his passing in 2006, he was involved in the ISO SQL language standardization process, as a member of the Dutch national body. He was also one of the founding members of the OakTable network (http://www.oaktable.net).

Toon Koppelaars studied computer science at the University of Technology in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He is a veteran Oracle technology user, having used the Oracle DBMS and tools since 1987. During his career he has been involved in both application development and database administration. His experience encompasses solutions involving terminals and hosts, two-tier client-server applications, and modern-day Java Enterprise Edition and web development. His interest areas include performance tuning (ensuring scalability, SQL-tuning), architecting applications in a DBMS-centric way, and logical/physical database design. Within the database design area, the formal specification and robust implementation of data integrity constraints (often referred to as business rules) is one of his special interest areas. Toon is a frequent presenter at Oracle-related conferences, a member of the Oaktable Network (www.oaktable.net), and a coauthor of the books Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals (Apress 2007) and Leerboek Oracle SQL (in Dutch, Academic Service 2013).

Table of Contents

A table of contents is not available for this title.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"It starts with the mathematical foundation of relational databases: concepts and their notation are introduced step-by-step, defined, and clearly explained. … this book is a very good introduction to the foundations of database design for an intermediate or advanced audience … ." (K. Balogh, ACM Computing Reviews, Vol. 49 (12), December, 2008)

From the Publisher