Thread: PostgreSQL book completed though chapter 10
I have completed the first draft of my book through chapter 10. New chapters include: Chapter 7, Numbering rows: OID's, sequences Chapter 8, Combining Selects: UNION, subqueries Chapter 9, Data Types: types, functions, operators, arrays Chapter 10,Transactions and Locks: transactions, locking The books is accessible at: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/awbook.html Comments welcomed. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: > I have completed the first draft of my book through chapter 10. > Bruce, it's looking very nice! Just browsing the TOC though, a couple of things struck me as odd/missing and if I were reviewing the book when finished I'd query these! First the pitch of the book seems a bit mixed. There is a lot of introductionary material on how to create a table, joins etc. inthe early chapters, but the book also covers quite advanced topics like user-defined functions. The reader is either going to skip the early chapters, or get lost in the later ones. If you really do want to cover such a broad spectrum, what about splitting the book into Part I - Introducing RDBMS and Part II - Using PostgreSQL (or something similar) Information on primary/foreign key constraints only appeared under the 'Joining Tables' chapter - I don't know how complete this chapter is, but the terms were defined with no suggestions about creating tables using these terms or using other constraints. I could see nothing about the object-relational features in terms of creating tables, etc. I would really like to see a PostgreSQL SQL reference as well - this I guess would be taken largely from the man pages. In summary, I like the style and the contents as far as it goes, but I think there are some important things missing (judging from the TOC) and personally I feel the organisation is a little odd. Hope you feel these comments have been useful. Best wishes, Andrew -- Dr. Andrew C.R. Martin EMail: a.c.r.martin@reading.ac.uk (work) Lecturer in Bioinformatics andrew@stagleys.demon.co.uk (home) University of Reading Tel.: +44 (0)118 987 5123x7022 Fax: +44 (0)118 931 0180
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > I have completed the first draft of my book through chapter 10. > > > > Bruce, it's looking very nice! > > Just browsing the TOC though, a couple of things struck me as odd/missing and > if I were reviewing the book when finished I'd query these! > > First the pitch of the book seems a bit mixed. There is a lot of > introductionary material on how to create a table, joins etc. inthe early > chapters, but the book also covers quite advanced topics like user-defined > functions. The reader is either going to skip the early chapters, or get lost I am only going to cover the concept of them, not show how to do them. > in the later ones. If you really do want to cover such a broad spectrum, what > about splitting the book into Part I - Introducing RDBMS and Part II - Using > PostgreSQL (or something similar) > > Information on primary/foreign key constraints only appeared under the Well, I am working on the Performance/index section, which is still pretty basic. I don't plan to get really into those advanced topics. > 'Joining Tables' chapter - I don't know how complete this chapter is, but the > terms were defined with no suggestions about creating tables using these terms > or using other constraints. I am going to do that after 7.0 is released. Contraints will be added too. > > I could see nothing about the object-relational features in terms of creating > tables, etc. Well, I have inheritance mentioned. > > I would really like to see a PostgreSQL SQL reference as well - this I guess > would be taken largely from the man pages. Yes, man pages will be at the end of the book. -- Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Bruce Momjian wrote: > > I have completed the first draft of my book through chapter 10. > > New chapters include: > > Chapter 7, Numbering rows: OID's, sequences > > Chapter 8, Combining Selects: UNION, subqueries > > Chapter 9, Data Types: types, functions, operators, arrays > > Chapter 10,Transactions and Locks: transactions, locking > > The books is accessible at: > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/awbook.html > > Comments welcomed. > > -- > Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle > pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000 > + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue > + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026 I just Finished reading your book, I did work along with the text up to chapter 4. I hope to finish that up when I get the time. It is looking great. I am a pgsql beginner and this book has help me out a lot. I know that data modeling is a huge subject, but you might want to add a small chapter on that subject. I look forward to reading more drafts, and thank you for the great work so far. Richrad