The Manga Guide to Databases — A low-stress introduction to
databases, in Manga comic style.
Reviewed by
Harry {doc} Babad (c) 2009
Authors: Mana Takahashi, Shoko Azuma, and
Trend-pro Co., Ltd.
English Edition: No Starch
Press, an O’Reilly Media Imprint
Released: January 2009
Pages: 224
$19.95
(list) $13.57 (Street) USD;
Amazon $14.56 CDNS, Amazon £8.69 UK.
ISBN-10: 1593271905
ISBN-13: 9781593271909
Audience: Some Beginners and all Intermediate
database wannabees. |
|
Strengths: Want to learn about databases without
the tedium? With its unique combination of Japanese-style comics and serious
educational content, The Manga Guide to Databases is just the book for most of you.
Examples and exercises (with answer keys) help you learn, and an appendix of
frequently used SQL statements gives the tools you need to create and
maintain full-featured databases.
Weaknesses: The book may be a bit overpowering for
database beginners who only skim, rather the read the book.
|
Testing
of many of Scotts Hints, those I did not know already, was carried out on my
iMac 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM running Mac OS X
version 10.5.4.
Product and
company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their
respective companies. |
Introduction
This
is the second book I’ve read in the Manga Edu-Comic Book series published in
English by No Starch Press. I had previously reviewed the statistics book [Manga
Guide to Statistics Book {4.5 m} January 2009]; since I’m an avid user of database
software, I though I’d check it out.
My
primary review interests were two-fold:
First the preset databases I use,
FileMaker Pro 9 (soon 10) and occasionally the new Bento 2; both of which hide
the mechanics of the Structured
Query Language [SQL.] That makes it easy to find specific items (data in the form of records)
and to prepare specialized formatted, even decorative reports suited to specific
end users needs.
SQL
is a database computer language designed
for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management
systems, database creation and modification, and database object access and
control management. It allows the retrieval, insertion, updating, and
deletion of data. A database management system also includes management and
administrative functions. Most – if not all – implementations
also include a command-line interface that allows for the entry and execution
of the language commands, as opposed to only providing an application
programming interface (API) intended for access from a graphical user interface
(GUI); A must for complex databases used out of the home in businesses
government, and universities. Excerpted in part from Wikipedia. |
Second,
although I’ve read broadly about setting up and using the database software I
use, I’ve taken very little time to study the rational between using a data
base (vs., a spreadsheet) and the tasks/problems associated with aggregating
and usefully retrieving the data you collect.
Publisher’s
Description
Want
to learn about databases without the tedium? With its unique combination of
Japanese-style comics and serious educational content, The MangaGuide to Databases is just the book for you. Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen
away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod’s humongous fruit-selling empire.
Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many
customers! It’s all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful
fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical
magic of databases.
In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico, the database fairy,
teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management. We follow along as
they design a relational database, understand the entity-relationship
model, perform basic database operations, and delve into
more advanced topics. Once the Princess is familiar with transactions and basic
SQL statements, she can keep her data timely and accurate for the entire
kingdom. Finally, Tico explains ways to make the database more efficient and secure, and they discuss methods for
concurrency and replication.
Examples
and exercises (with answer keys) help you learn, and an appendix of frequently
used SQL statements gives the tools you need to create and maintain
full-featured databases. (Of course, it wouldn’t be a royal kingdom without
some drama, so read on to find out who gets the girl—the arrogant prince
or the humble servant.)
Here’s a sample of a comic book formatted page
that serve as introductions in each of the book’s chapters.
The Book
Itself
The first thing
I noticed upon cracking this book was the straightforward manner in which
information is presented. As a stranger to comic books, I was concerned that
the book could distract me fro leaning the information, if it was in
comic/manga form.
I quickly found
myself drawn into the story of Princess Ruruna, Cain, and the Kingdom of Kod’s
issues with data management. Each chapter has an introductory set of pages in
manga form, and then a number of pages that use text and illustrations to
reinforce what was discussed in the first part of the chapter. This provides
not only a fun way to get comfortable with the concepts, but also a well
written summary of those concepts to make sure you understand them before you
move on.
The
main and sequential, themes in the book are:
- What is a database? – Its “a
system in which data is shared by everyone”
- What are the basic components of
Kod’s database - each type of fruit has one record that is broken out into
field such as product code, product name, unit price, and so on. If a
second variety of a given fruit is added (Fuji vs. Johnny Gold Apple) it
get a new product code etc.
- The Goal —
How do you convert that information into a modern standard relational database (Chapters 1 &
2)
From
there, Tico explains more advanced, and detailed, concepts, such as:
- How to extract data from a
relational database using set and relational operations (e.g., SQL
operators and their functions.)
- Using database security, user
permissions, and transactions to avoid conflicting addition or deletion data
operations
- And how to use SQL to insert data or retrieve it to
generate various types of reports from one or more tables (Chapter 3-5)
The
last chapter of the book focuses on the theme Databases are everywhere.
Back
to the Kingdom of Kod’s Data Control Needs — The book identifies several groups of
users who have overlapping needs for data both from a input and output stand
point. For example, [1] Merchandise-Old and new products (fruit type and cost),
[2] Overseas Business Department (actual and perhaps potential customers), and
the [3] Export Department (sales Tables) are the users of the Kingdom of Kod’s
Fruit business. There was also mention of a Tourism Department, but it got no
real play in the book, only a single mention.
Obviously,
there’s a need for an overall administrative and control function, a role
served by Princess Ruruna and her talented assistant Cain. Isn’t Bureaucracy
wonderful?
I could not figure out why there were so many departments in Kod’s
fruit business; all having a tree full of affiliated groups (branches) involved
in managing the fruit business; or even in my local city government. Tradition,
I’m guessing. That however did not distract from my gaining an understanding
about the problems that could ensue between the Merchandise Department, the Overseas Business
Department, and the Export Department, where the prices of the various fruits
were being messed up as they were managed (changed) in as many as three
separate places. …Or for that matter for any unmanaged or pearly developed
database tool.
Moving
Right Along
Databases
Are Part of Your Everyday Life — In addition, "databases are essential for any modern IT project,
but they can be really intimidating for non-specialists," said No Starch
Press founder William Pollock. "The benefits of The Manga Guide to
Databases, and all of
the other books in this series, are that the manga story carries the reader
through the book, and the learning happens almost effortlessly. Databases are
presented as something fun, not something dreadful.
“Guided
by the book's authentic manga style narrative and Tico the database fairy's
real-life examples, readers learn how to:
- Extract data from a relational
database using set and relational operations
- Apply the entity-relationship model
to accurately represent their data
- Set user permissions and use
transactions and locks to prevent the entering of conflicting data or
unauthorized data deletion.
- Use SQL to update or retrieve data
and create reports
In
the last part of the book (Chapter 6), readers will even explore advanced
topics like security, indexing, disaster recovery, and replication.”
As
noted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll in a recent review:
“The book is remarkably
thorough for it's length. It manages to cover all of the basics - means, medians,
deviations, basic probability, distributions, and hypothesis testing - all in
around two hundred pages of comics! And it doesn't just cover them, but it does
a good job. By the end of this book, you'll understand when, where, how, and
why to apply each of the ideas described in the book.”
Kudos and
Things I Learned
Things
to Make my File Making Easier and More Focused {Pages 106-108} —
Perhaps the most useful, to me, was the section on SQL Overview. The
information provided, the Princes, Cain and Tico were taking a break, proved a
valuable insight into the inner working of FileMaker Pro, my database tool of
choice.
Topics
ranged from the simple Searching for Data Using a Select Statement; through Using
Operators to create search conditions. I was particularly delighted with the information
on pattern searches (use of wildcards) that escaped me in FileMaker Pro. It
focused on finding relationships in a complex data set that could not easily be
found using a direct-search criterion. And of course the information was
followed by a challenging but doable set of exercise, a fundamental aspect of
the leaning you can achieve with the Manga books.
Index
and an Appendix of Frequently Used SQL Statements — Every time I got
lost, I was able to check the index and catch up to information provided in
earlier sections, that I’d missed or forgotten. I also found the SQL statements provided, educational,
despite the fact that with FileMaker Pro, at my skill level, I’d likely never
need them.
Disappointments
and Discomforts
Insufficient
Examples in the Section on Relational Operations — Some of the
examples provided on Pages 43-47 seemed self-explanatory. But, I couldn’t
figure out why or when I would use with a projection, division or at times the selection operator. I guessed that
division could be a neither-nor logic operation, but who knows.
Introduction
to Set Theory — This material was both distracting and out of context. — I enjoyed the
refresher on set theory (pages 39-41), which served as an introduction to
relational operations. It reminded me of taking a course on introduction to
symbolic logic at the University of Denver where I taught introductory and
advanced chemistry courses. I flunked the course, but have been
successfully using symbolic logic in my professional work ever since. However
in the context of this book, introducing set theory (Venn diagrams) served no
apparent purpose since it was neither put to use in later chapters or even
again referenced.
Inadequate
References for The Book’s Projected Audience — None of the references are to
introductory materials that could serve beginner users. The targeted readers
would have absolutely no use for references aimed at professional database
developers or managers. Example references from a quick Google search, I would
have considered include:
Conclusions
and Recommendations
The
Manga Guide to Databases is
well-focused technically oriented book that was fun to read. However, I can in
fairness only recommend it to either those database novices who have foundation
in set theory and an understanding of relationships between information. Alas,
both of these subjects are under-taught in our primary and secondary schools.
It is indeed a Japanese students beginner's book with a mind catching and
attractively presented up overview of databases, served up manga-style. I don’t
know how well it would play for American secondary school student, whose test
score in math are often well below than the world average.
Never
the less, from the first few
pages of technical detail, its ability to effectively and painlessly plunge
into a difficult complex topic is undeniable. Indeed, poorly taught database theory can be a morass of
arcane theory, acronym and specialized insider terms.
You won't get
to be a Database Administrator after reading this manga-based book. However,
reading it will create a foundation so that if/when you study the topic of
databases in greater depth, things won't seem nearly as scary or dry as they
might have been without this introduction.
After reading,
no actually studying the book, I began to better understand the under pinnings
of FileMaker Pro and TheRecipeManager software, which of course are databased. That alone made the book worth owning.
If
you are a hard-core database geek—developer or administrator, you do
not need to
buy the book. I also have some reservations about its usefulness for those who are completely new to the whole concept of databases that
I discuss below. For the rest of us in-betweens, should add this book to
our collections.
If
you plan on going beyond blindly using prefabricated templates in great
software such as Bento 2 or FileMaker Pro, this book is a must buy. Aside from
the philosophical “I think therefore I am; understanding the fundamentals of databases
creation and use, you will be better able to use those and comparable tools to
manage you personal, small business and even professional data. Don’t wait for
a holiday or your birthday… act now, there’s more to life than following a
template.
However,
I’m still having second or third thoughts about the book’s usefulness for. A
counterpoint to my concerns was reported in Active Anime blog. "You can never have heard the word
'database' and be able to follow the book and understand the concept with
relative ease thanks to the easy to follow process and well broken down
steps." I can’t get my head
around the bloggers premise, in a newbie environment; but others online seem to
agree with the blogster.
http://www.activeanime.com/html/content/view/4632/36/
Buy
it, despite the annoying problems I found, you’d like it and use it and
therefore will be the wiser for the effort. 4.0 macCs
