"This book takes the somewhat daunting process of database design and breaks it into completely manageable and understandable components. Mike's approach whilst simple is completely professional, and I can recommend this book to any novice database designer." --Sandra Barker, Lecturer, University of South Australia, Australia "Databases are a critical infrastructure technology for information systems and today's business. Mike Hernandez has written a literate explanation of database technology--a topic that is intricate and often obscure. If you design databases yourself, this book will educate you about pitfalls and show you what to do. If you purchase products that use a database, the book explains the technology so that you can understand what the vendor is doing and assess their products better." --Michael Blaha, consultant and trainer, author of A Manager's Guide to Database Technology "If you told me that Mike Hernandez could improve on the first edition of Database Design for Mere Mortals I wouldn't have believed you, but he did! The second edition is packed with more real-world examples, detailed explanations, and even includes database-design tools on the CD-ROM! This is a must-read for anyone who is even remotely interested in relational database design, from the individual who is called upon occasionally to create a useful tool at work, to the seasoned professional who wants to brush up on the fundamentals. Simply put, if you want to do it right, read this book!" --Matt Greer, Process Control Development, The Dow Chemical Company "Mike's approach to database design is totally common-sense based, yet he's adhered to all the rules of good relational database design. I use Mike's books in my starter database-design class, and I recommend his books to anyone who's interested in learning how to design databases or how to write SQL queries." --Michelle Poolet, President, MVDS, Inc. "Slapping together sophisticated applications with poorly designed data will hurt you just as much now as when Mike wrote his first edition, perhaps even more. Whether you're just getting started developing with data or are a seasoned pro; whether you've read Mike's previous book or this is your first; whether you're happier letting someone else design your data or you love doing it yourself--this is the book for you. Mike's ability to explain these concepts in a way that's not only clear, but fun, continues to amaze me." --From the Foreword by Ken Getz, MCW Technologies, coauthor ASP.NET Developer's JumpStart "The first edition of Mike Hernandez's book Database Design for Mere Mortals was one of the few books that survived the cut when I moved my office to smaller quarters. The second edition expands and improves on the original in so many ways. It is not only a good, clear read, but contains a remarkable quantity of clear, concise thinking on a very complex subject. It's a must for anyone interested in the subject of database design." --Malcolm C. Rubel, Performance Dynamics Associates "Mike's excellent guide to relational database design deserves a second edition. His book is an essential tool for fledgling Microsoft Access and other desktop database developers, as well as for client/server pros. I recommend it highly to all my readers." --Roger Jennings, author of Special Edition Using Access 2002 "There are no silver bullets! Database technology has advanced dramatically, the newest crop of database servers perform operations faster than anyone could have imagined six years ago, but none of these technological advances will help fix a bad database design, or capture data that you forgot to include! Database Design for Mere Mortals(TM), Second Edition, helps you design your database right in the first place!" --Matt Nunn, Product Manager, SQL Server, Microsoft Corporation "When my brother started his professional career as a developer, I gave him Mike's book to help him understand database concepts and make real-world application of database technology. When I need a refresher on the finer points of database design, this is the book I pick up. I do not think that there is a better testimony to the value of a book than that it gets used. For this reason I have wholeheartedly recommended to my peers and students that they utilize this book in their day-to-day development tasks." --Chris Kunicki, Senior Consultant, OfficeZealot.com "Mike has always had an incredible knack for taking the most complex topics, breaking them down, and explaining them so that anyone can 'get it.' He has honed and polished his first very, very good edition and made it even better. If you're just starting out building database applications, this book is a must-read cover to cover. Expert designers will find Mike's approach fresh and enlightening and a source of great material for training others." --John Viescas, President, Viescas Consulting, Inc., author of Running Microsoft Access 2000 and coauthor of SQL Queries for Mere Mortals "Whether you need to learn about relational database design in general, design a relational database, understand relational database terminology, or learn best practices for implementing a relational database, Database Design for Mere Mortals(TM), Second Edition, is an indispensable book that you'll refer to often. With his many years of real-world experience designing relational databases, Michael shows you how to analyze and improve existing databases, implement keys, define table relationships and business rules, and create data views, resulting in data integrity, uniform access to data, and reduced data-entry errors." --Paul Cornell, Site Editor, MSDN Office Developer Center Sound database design can save hours of development time and ensure functionality and reliability. Database Design for Mere Mortals(TM), Second Edition, is a straightforward, platform-independent tutorial on the basic principles of relational database design. It provides a commonsense design methodology for developing databases that work. Database design expert Michael J. Hernandez has expanded his best-selling first edition, maintaining its hands-on approach and accessibility while updating its coverage and including even more examples and illustrations. This edition features a CD-ROM that includes diagrams of sample databases, as well as design guidelines, documentation forms, and examples of the database design process. This book will give you the knowledge and tools you need to create efficient and effective relational databases.

&a>Database Design for Mere Mortals™, Second Edition, is a straightforward, platform-independent tutorial on the basic principles of relational database design. It provides a commonsense design methodology for developing databases that work. Database design expert Michael J. Hernandez has expanded his best-selling first edition, maintaining its hands-on approach and accessibility while updating its coverage and including even more examples and illustrations. This book will give you the knowledge and tools you need to create efficient and effective relational databases.

The #1 Easy, Common-Sense Guide to SQL Queries--Updated for Today's Databases, Standards, and Challenges SQL Queries for Mere Mortals ® has earned worldwide praise as the clearest, simplest tutorial on writing effective SQL queries. The authors have updated this hands-on classic to reflect new SQL standards and database applications and teach valuable new techniques. Step by step, John L. Viescas and Michael J. Hernandez guide you through creating reliable queries for virtually any modern SQL-based database. They demystify all aspects of SQL query writing, from simple data selection and filtering to joining multiple tables and modifying sets of data. Three brand-new chapters teach you how to solve a wide range of challenging SQL problems. You'll learn how to write queries that apply multiple complex conditions on one table, perform sophisticated logical evaluations, and think "outside the box" using unlinked tables. Coverage includes -- Getting started: understanding what relational databases are, and ensuring that your database structures are sound -- SQL basics: using SELECT statements, creating expressions, sorting information with ORDER BY, and filtering data using WHERE -- Summarizing and grouping data with GROUP BY and HAVING clauses -- Drawing data from multiple tables: using INNER JOIN, OUTER JOIN, and UNION operators, and working with subqueries -- Modifying data sets with UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE statements Advanced queries: complex NOT and AND, conditions, if-then-else using CASE, unlinked tables, driver tables, and more Practice all you want with downloadable sample databases for today's versions of Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft SQL Server, and the open source MySQL database. Whether you're a DBA, developer, user, or student, there's no better way to master SQL. informit.com/aw forMereMortals.com

NoSQL for Mere Mortals is an easy, practical guide to succeeding with NoSQL in your environment. Students are guided step-by-step through choosing technologies, designing high-performance databases, and planning for long-term maintenance. The author introduces each type of NoSQL database, shows how to install and manage them, and demonstrates how to leverage their features while avoiding common mistakes that lead to poor performance and unmet requirements. He uses four popular NoSQL databases as reference models: MongoDB, a document database; Cassandra, a column family data store; Redis, a key-value database; and Neo4j, a graph database.

Because databases often stay in production for decades, careful design is critical to making the database serve the needs of your users over years, and to avoid subtle errors or performance problems. In this book, C.J. Date, a leading exponent of relational databases, lays out the principles of good database design.

User Interface Design for Mere Mortals takes the mystery out of designing effective interfaces for both desktop and web applications. It is recommended reading for anyone who wants to provide users of their software with interfaces that are intuitive and easy-to-use. The key to any successful application lies in providing an interface users not only enjoy interacting with but which also saves time, eliminates frustration, and gets the job done with a minimum of effort. Readers will discover the secrets of good interface design by learning how users behave and the expectations that users have of different types of interfaces. Anyone who reads User Interface Design for Mere Mortals will benefit from • Gaining an appreciation of the differences in the “look and feel” of interfaces for a variety of systems and platforms • Learning how to go about designing and creating the most appropriate interface for the application or website being developed • Becoming familiar with all the different components that make up an interface and the important role that each of those components plays in communicating with users • Understanding the business benefits that flow from good interface design such as significantly reduced support costs • Gaining invaluable insights into how users behave, including the seven stages of human interaction with computers • Working through case study based, in-depth analysis of each of the stages involved in designing a user interface • Acquiring practical knowledge about the similarities and differences between designing websites and traditional desktop applications • Learning how to define, conduct, and analyze usability testing Through the use of the proven For Mere Mortals format, User Interface Design for Mere Mortals succeeds in parting the veil of mystery surrounding effective user interface design. Whatever your background, the For Mere Mortals format makes the information easily accessible and usable. Contents Preface Introduction CHAPTER 1 Brief Histories CHAPTER 2 Concepts and Issues CHAPTER 3 Making the Business Case CHAPTER 4 Good Design CHAPTER 5 How User Behave CHAPTER 6 Analyzing Your Users CHAPTER 7 Designing a User Interface CHAPTER 8 Designing a Web Site CHAPTER 9 Usability APPENDIX A Answers to Review Questions APPENDIX B Recommended Reading Glossary References Index

Beginning Database Design, Second Edition provides short, easy-to-read explanations of how to get database design right the first time. This book offers numerous examples to help you avoid the many pitfalls that entrap new and not-so-new database designers. Through the help of use cases and class diagrams modeled in the UML, you’ll learn to discover and represent the details and scope of any design problem you choose to attack. Database design is not an exact science. Many are surprised to find that problems with their databases are caused by poor design rather than by difficulties in using the database management software. Beginning Database Design, Second Edition helps you ask and answer important questions about your data so you can understand the problem you are trying to solve and create a pragmatic design capturing the essentials while leaving the door open for refinements and extension at a later stage. Solid database design principles and examples help demonstrate the consequences of simplifications and pragmatic decisions. The rationale is to try to keep a design simple, but allow room for development as situations change or resources permit. Provides solid design principles by which to avoid pitfalls and support changing needs Includes numerous examples of good and bad design decisions and their consequences Shows a modern method for documenting design using the Unified Modeling Language

Bridges the gaps between database theory, database modeling, and database implementation by outlining a simple but reliable six-step process for accurately modeling user data on a Crow's Foot Relational Model Diagram, and then demonstrating how to implement this model on any relational database management system. This volume uses three case studies and starts with a statement of the problem by the client and then goes through the six steps necessary to create a reliable and accurate data model of the client's business requirements. The second edition contains a new chapter on implementation that goes through the steps necessary to implement each of the case studies on a relational database management system, clearly relating the design to implementation and database theory. In addition, questions are also included at the end of each of the six steps and one of the previous case studies has been replaced, making the case study selection more diverse. This book is intended for use as a handbook for students and professionals in the software-development field. The technique described in this book can be used by students for quickly developing relational databases for their applications, and by professionals for developing sturdy, reliable, and accurate relational database models for their software applications. --From publisher description.

The #1 Easy, Commonsense Guide to Database Design! Michael J. Hernandez’s best-selling Database Design for Mere Mortals® has earned worldwide respect as the clearest, simplest way to learn relational database design. Now, he’s made this hands-on, software-independent tutorial even easier, while ensuring that his design methodology is still relevant to the latest databases, applications, and best practices. Step by step, Database Design for Mere Mortals®, Third Edition, shows you how to design databases that are soundly structured, reliable, and flexible, even in modern web applications. Hernandez guides you through everything from database planning to defining tables, fields, keys, table relationships, business rules, and views. You’ll learn practical ways to improve data integrity, how to avoid common mistakes, and when to break the rules. Coverage includes Understanding database types, models, and design terminology Discovering what good database design can do for you—and why bad design can make your life miserable Setting objectives for your database, and transforming those objectives into real designs Analyzing a current database so you can identify ways to improve it Establishing table structures and relationships, assigning primary keys, setting field specifications, and setting up views Ensuring the appropriate level of data integrity for each application Identifying and establishing business rules Whatever relational database systems you use, Hernandez will help you design databases that are robust and trustworthy. Never designed a database before? Settling for inadequate generic designs? Running existing databases that need improvement? Start here.

This textbook examines database systems from the viewpoint of a software developer. This perspective makes it possible to investigate why database systems are the way they are. It is of course important to be able to write queries, but it is equally important to know how they are processed. We e.g. don’t want to just use JDBC; we also want to know why the API contains the classes and methods that it does. We need a sense of how hard is it to write a disk cache or logging facility. And what exactly is a database driver, anyway? The first two chapters provide a brief overview of database systems and their use. Chapter 1 discusses the purpose and features of a database system and introduces the Derby and SimpleDB systems. Chapter 2 explains how to write a database application using Java. It presents the basics of JDBC, which is the fundamental API for Java programs that interact with a database. In turn, Chapters 3-11 examine the internals of a typical database engine. Each chapter covers a different database component, starting with the lowest level of abstraction (the disk and file manager) and ending with the highest (the JDBC client interface); further, the respective chapter explains the main issues concerning the component, and considers possible design decisions. As a result, the reader can see exactly what services each component provides and how it interacts with the other components in the system. By the end of this part, s/he will have witnessed the gradual development of a simple but completely functional system. The remaining four chapters then focus on efficient query processing, and focus on the sophisticated techniques and algorithms that can replace the simple design choices described earlier. Topics include indexing, sorting, intelligent buffer usage, and query optimization. This text is intended for upper-level undergraduate or beginning graduate courses in Computer Science. It assumes that the reader is comfortable with basic Java programming; advanced Java concepts (such as RMI and JDBC) are fully explained in the text. The respective chapters are complemented by “end-of-chapter readings” that discuss interesting ideas and research directions that went unmentioned in the text, and provide references to relevant web pages, research articles, reference manuals, and books. Conceptual and programming exercises are also included at the end of each chapter. Students can apply their conceptual knowledge by examining the SimpleDB (a simple but fully functional database system created by the author and provided online) code and modifying it.