Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL [With CDROM]

by Richard T. Snodgrass

Showing professional SQL programmers how to effectively develop applications that involve time-oriented data and queries, this book covers such areas as: how to best record temporal data in tables... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558604367
• ISBN13: 9781558604360
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Buying a hardcopy will cost you, but you can get it online for free...

People seem to be selling used copies of this book for quite a bit ($125+) but you can get a PDF of the book for free from the author: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/rts/tdbbook.pdf Thanks to the author for providing this resource!

Consise best-practices for date-time handling.

This is a book EVERY programmer that deals with databases should read. It explains the evils of NULL date/datetimes and how to properly optimize a database design for real-world queries.Follows several applications through the evolution of time-senstive queries, clearly distinguishing the concepts of "current time", "effective time" and "transaction time", which trip up developers over and over.

Widely and immediately useful

I've used this book while working as the lead data architect on several large database projects, and it's been a lifesaver. It brings rigor and discipline to a very difficult area for SQL (true relational) databases: handling, reporting on, and storing the changing [versions of] data over time. The concepts are themselves quite difficult and challenging, and I would be loathe to even attempt to build a system tracking changing data over time without this book's priceless assistance. Another reviewer, an instructor, didn't like the book: it is not a tutorial and may be hard to use, understand, or follow if you are not already working on a problem that this book can help you solve. But if you are involved in creating (say) an insurance application that must handle retroactivity, or a financial system that must be able to re-create an earlier financial report and explain why today's version of Q2 is different from yesterday's, then you NEED this book.

Database designer will learn to think of NOW in PAST terms

The one-of-a-kind book is a practical research on how the real world changes over time effect the viability of database design. The author provides many solutions to real-life problems and (most important!) 'gotchas' of the these solutions. The examples are provided for many popular DBMSs(from MS Access to Oracle).The reader benefits greatly from the superb organization of material, clear language and good illustrations. The sidebar notes on history of time-measuring devices provide a nice break from the 'heavy-duty' stuff. I bought my copy two month ago and it has already became a one of the best-thumbed books on my professional shelf.

Quickly understand temporal data

Professor Snodgrass has effectively communicated temporal data to me with this top-notch book. I have been designing systems for 25+ years and, for me, this book ranks with Donald Knuth's, "Art of Programming: Fundamental Algorithms (first edition)" and Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows", for its impact, in particular on my thinking process in software development. Every system I review, every table I design, every object that I design be considered differently than before I read this book.His analogies are "country", but important. It took three settings of an hour each on 10 pages until the concepts really sank in. I have seen these constructs in Data Warehouses, but now I see a future for these in transactional systems.Every time based system will eventually incorporate these concepts (and new SQL tools) - In particular all accounting systems including banking, brokerage (especially portfolio management), tax accounting. For example, right now we are working on a system to track and manage vendor problems in a "just in time" manufacturing environment. If our tables had been designed with these temporal concepts, we would be able to more effectively communicate trends to our management users.Those people who are familiar with these concepts may find it boring, but for those of us learning, I say thank you!