Re: Partly OT - Database Programming textbook

> Unfortunately so many people even experienced Oracle DBA's are often weak on theory. Experience and mistakes and learning do count for a lot over time but working in "Database Programming" without a good understanding of the fundamentals of relational design ...
>
> If one is looking for a very readable and shorter book that still captures much of the theory I highly recommend CJ Date's book (O'Reilly ) "Database in Depth Relational Theory for Practitioners".
>
>

As one of the three original technical reviewers of the said book (superseded by SQL and Relational Theory <http://www.amazon.com/SQL-Relational-Theory-Write-Accurate/dp/1449316409>) I can only approve your advice, and believe me I love theory too. But I like to show theory in practice and I am not sure that feeding "functional dependencies" and BCNF to young and fragile minds is the best way to make them love a topic as much as they should. My vision of theory is

1. Bill Kent's rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_normal_form#.22Nothing_but_the_key.22
2. Relational magic only works if intermediate result sets satisfy the same requirements as "relations", i.e. no duplicates. Otherwise you get wrong results and I can prove it. And while not having the same kind of passionate hate for nulls as Chris, I can show you also how you may not get what you expected with them.

I hope it clarifies my "short on theory". Theory is there to lay a sound foundation to correctness ... and it's when you "see" what theory means that you really understand it, and appreciate it. I'm trying to make sound professionals of people who won't pursue graduate studies, and to make advanced courses more understandable to the others.

-- 
Stephane Faroult
RoughSea Ltd <http://www.roughsea.com>
Konagora <http://www.konagora.com>
RoughSea Channel on Youtube <http://www.youtube.com/user/roughsealtd>


--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l