Object-Oriented Database Design Clearly Explained

This book is short, to the point, and fairly shallow. A great starting place if you want just enough background to understand a database product's documentation. This is definitely not an in-depth SQL reference, but many of those details vary between implementations anyway.

The book could be improved by replacing the chapter on CASE tools with more material on advanced SQL hacking.

Part one, a hundred pages of theory, explains the OO data model. UML is shortly mentioned, but throughout the rest of the book ER models are used. The quality of some of the models is doubtful, as inheritance seems overvalued. Normal associations, like delegation or other forms, are not mentioned as an alternative. I do not know why this book has OO Database design in the title, because hardly any specifics about this topic can be found in the book.

The equivalent of SQL for OO databases is ODL and OQL, but it is stated 'A discussion of OQL is beyond the scope of this book'. So what is in the scope of the book?

Part two, two hundred pages, consists of three case studies. It contains many pages on useless company descriptions. The OO database design is based on the relational model, copied from the book Relational Database Design by the same author. Some tables are slightly objectified, but this is all that is done. There is no design, just repetitive code listings, of which the book contains no less than hundred pages.

I cannot recommend this book, you better read a good OO introduction and find another source for OO databases."

I couldn't have said it better. My reccomendation is some other guide. You might want to look at "Introduction to Object-Oriented Databases" by Won Kim or better yet, just go learn to do Object Oriented Analysis and Design using UML from the "UML Distilled" book, then (and only then) create am Object Persistance Model from the UML design.

Devin.

I hope there will be a second edition. If there is, the glossary might be somewhat expanded. I would like additional unified modeling language (UML) diagrams. I would like an explicit explanation of "impedience mismatch" between object-oriented applications and relational databases, although this may be slightly out of scope.

This is a unique and valuable book. Being a teacher, I see its value in the classroom. It is a practical book which surely is also of immediate value to progressive database administrators and programmers who are helping bring object technology into their organizations. It is an excellent textbook for courses on object-oriented database design. I plan to use it as a second textbook for a general course on databases. I think it would also be ideal as a second textbook for courses in object-oriented systems design which include database design.

Bruce Neubauer -- Pittsburg State University