Copyright (c) 2003 C. J. Date page fm.5
• Read Chapters 3 and 4 very carefully.
• Read Chapters 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 carefully, but skip Chapter
8──except, probably, for Section 8.6 on SQL (in fact, you
might want to treat portions of Section 8.6 "early," perhaps
along with the discussion of embedded SQL in Chapter 4).
Note: It would be possible to skip or skim Chapter 5, too,
but if you do you'll need to come back and deal with it
properly before you cover Chapter 20 or Chapters 25-27.
• Read Chapter 11 "once over lightly."
• Read Chapters 12 and 14 carefully, but skip Chapter 13. (You
could also read Chapter 14 earlier if you like, possibly right
after Chapter 4. Many instructors like to treat the
entity/relationship material much earlier than I do. For that
reason I've tried to make Chapter 14 more or less self-
contained, so that it can be read "early" if you like.)
• Read Chapters 15 and 16 carefully.
• Read subsequent chapters selectively (but in sequence),
according to taste and interest.
I'd like to add that instructors, at least, should read the
preface too (most people don't!).
Each chapter opens with an introduction and closes with a
summary; each chapter also includes a set of exercises (and the
online answers often give additional information about the subject
at hand). Each chapter also includes a set of references, many of
them annotated. This structure allows the subject matter to be
treated in a multi-level fashion, with the most important concepts
and results being presented inline in the main body of the text
and various subsidiary issues and more complex aspects being
deferred to the exercises, or answers, or reference annotation, as
appropriate.
With regard to those references, by the way, I should explain
that references are identified in the text by two-part numbers in
square brackets. For example, the reference "[3.1]" refers to the
first item in the list of references at the end of Chapter 3:
namely, a paper by E. F. Codd published in CACM 25, No. 2, in
February, 1982. (For an explanation of abbreviations used in
references──e.g., "CACM"──see Appendix B. Regarding Codd in
particular, let me draw your attention to the dedication in this
new edition of the book. It's a sad comment on the state of our
field that I often encounter database students or professionals
who have never heard of Ted Codd.)
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