Screaming Penguin

Charlie: This review covers "The Linux Database" by Fred Butzen and Dorothy Forbes, MIS Press, 1997. This book is basically about Relational Databases (RDBMS), and SQL.It thoroughly covers theory and practicality and overall is a very good book. I read it for background on the relational database model and for SQL information. It covers both of these subjects very well. It also covers application design, database access and industry standards such as ODBC and JDBC. It also is a very in depth reference and tutorial on SQL. It points out how powerful the combination of open source or commercial database packages and Linux can be (very robust applications and operating system capable of just about whatever you need and basically for free.) This book does a good job of pointing out where the ANSI SQL standards end and proprietary design begins. The only issues I have with this book are obvious editing errors, typos, and even syntax errors in examples (all of which are minor and were easily recognized but by my standards are not acceptable in final draft form, especially in a computer related text.) Rating 3.8 Penguin Afros (out of a possible 5) on our scale. Checkit at Amazon (and BUY it from here to support the Penguin.)The Linux Database.