A First Course in Database Systems

by Jeffrey D. Ullman and Jennifer Widom

Book Overview

For Database Systems and Database Design and Application courses offered at the junior, senior, and graduate levels in Computer Science departments. Written by well-known computer scientists, this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0138613370
• ISBN13: 9780138613372
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 1.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.3" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book

The book is excellent for beginners in the field of Databases. SQL is covered very good. The examples, (based on beer, bars, sells, drinkers, likes and ...) are also very good (although I do not like beer or alcohol in particular), explained in detail and the students understand them very well. I am using it for the English speaking group of computer science at our University, and so far (we have covered almost half of the book), everything is going rather well. Thank you Mr.Ullman.

An excellent text for someone that is new to databases

This was the text used for my first course in databases several years ago. It is written in plain english and I find that to be one of its primary strengths as it is geared towards people with no experience at all with databases.

There's a reason the used price hews...

There is a reason the used price for this book hews so closely to the list price: the book is a high-quality piece that is extraordinarily well written and easy to follow as well as deeply imbued with a great deal of information.I currently have three titles in my list of "all-time great Computer Science books" -- from the selectivity it should be clear how difficult it is to earn a spot on said list -- and this is the third book on it (in order of date read, not quality). The other two are Patterson & Hennessy's Computer Organization and Design and W. Richard Stevens's TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1.I was not particularly interested in databases -- the subdiscipline -- prior to taking the course for which I purchased this book. I must say though that the combination of straight-forward descriptions and easy to quickly grasp examples makes this topic ever more accessible.The canonical examples provided -- consistent throughout and extended as new topics are broached -- as well as the relaxed yet careful language utilized throughout make this book a solid and worthwhile investment. More of an investment than the book itself (any book), though, is the time spent reading it. I was careful to read the book extraordinarily thoroughly -- even short snippets underneath examples and what have you -- and every time in doing so I was rewarded for this extra investment of time with enhanced knowledge and understanding. There is very little that is superfluous in this book yet at the same time every description is adroit; no description leaves you wondering about some aspect or another: the book is exceedingly thorough.

Great book

I'm taking a Database class right now. I'm using this book as another reference besides the required textbook and found out that this book is very clear in explaining things. Worth every penny !

An excellent resource. Informative, helpful and readable

This book, along with the online resources, has been a very valuable resource to me. This book is exactly what I have been looking for and was afraid did not exist. The book was quite readable and the examples helped explain some of the more difficult concepts. All in all, it made databases seem simple