Object-Oriented Modeling and Design for Database Applications

I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who has the patience and endurance to get through it. It is definately NOT easy reading. The material is extremely condensed with little or no redundancy, but it is the most complete and acurate technical book I have ever read. The excercises are great as well; not dumbed down unrealistically easy or multiple choice questions that give you the false impression that you've mastered the subject like many books contain, but very difficult and realistic problems. The authors obviously took their' time writing in.

I have read this book cover to cover. Think about that. When was the last time you (or anyone you know) read a technical book cover to cover? It is that good. It *does* get a bit deep and theoretical in many places, but it covers the subject matter with more depth and more meaningful examples than any other book I have ever seen. A MUST READ, if you want to design serious object databases!!

The book is composed of four parts: modeling concepts, analysis/design, implementation and large system issues.

The first part describes the main concepts on object oriented modeling. The topics on object relationships (association, aggregation, generalization) are excellent.

The second part, I consider that contains the best chapters. There are a lot of advices on how to develop database applications following object orientation and on how to choose a data management approach.

The third part, about implemmentation, has good and bad chapters. I don't like the chapters on relational databases. They include valuable information on how to map classes to relational databases but some space is wasted with basic concepts on relational databases and the main example is developed using Microsoft Access.

The last part is the smallest one and contains introductory topics on distributed databases, integration of applications and reverse engineering.

The class diagrams are in OMT notation.

This book really enables to seamlessly synthesize 2 approaches - relational and object oriented while building systems with complex data structures and persistence requirements.

Great combination of hands-on and conceptual understanding of object oriented software development and database design/programming. If you are new to the object-oriented world and have experience with procedural programming and database applications, this is the book to get. It will take you directly to the object-oriented view and how to use OMT/UML to use a sound and pragmatic process to achieve those goals. It might actually be the only book you need !!