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Ask HN: What are some good books for SQL/DBA?
Inspired by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31309729.
Managing databases has always been one of the most fun things for me, optimising queries, finding inefficiencies, figuring out how to squeeze more performance out of the DB servers.
But most of it has come from just trying whatever I can think of, and I'm sure I'm missing some fundamentals or more advanced techniques, so I figured I'd ask y'all for guidance.
- Tomte 4y agoI like Curious Moon, anything by C.J. Date, The Art of SQL, and if a course is wanted: Mastery with SQL.
- hyperman1 4y agoThat 'Curious Moon' actually seems pretty cool. https://bigmachine.io/products/a-curious-moon/ https://bigmachine.io/products/a-curious-moon/
- hyperman1 4y agoSome advice from the dark ages 20 years ago: I learned a big part from 'An introduction to Database Systems' from C.J.Date. The core understanding of relational databases is in there. It was at the time a book that needed cleaning up and reorganizing, but a few editions have passed by now, so maybe that has happened. I also learned a lot of Tom Kyte's Expert 1 on 1. Beware: A huge tome, not only good for swatting flies, it can manage small rodents as well. I had the first or second edition which is probably pretty dated by now, but it is a good book to pick up the DBA attitude and learn advanced querying. If you use it as inspiration and not as a reference, it will probably still work. Even if the 2nd book is about Oracle, I would suggest to start learning postgres, it is a cleaner, better structured database today.
- cafard 4y agoAgreed with hyperman and Tomte that C.J. Date is excellent. I would also mention Gray and Reuter, Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques.
- brudgers 4y agoFor fundamental database theory see Hellerstein’s CS 186: Introduction to Database Systems https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhMnuBfGeCDPtyC9kUf_hG_Qw https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhMnuBfGeCDPtyC9kUf_hG_Qw...
- dmfay 4y agoLex de Haan and Toon Koppelaars, Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals -- a fairly gentle introduction to database theory starting with logic & discrete math Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross, The Data Warehouse Toolkit -- even if you're in an OLTP context, it's useful to know about warehousing techniques Dmitri Fontaine, The Art of PostgreSQL -- cookbook approach to modern SQL with plenty of explanations Not a book but Heinz Klein and Kalle Lyytinen's paper "Towards a New Understanding of Data Modeling" in the Software Development and Reality Construction remains a must-read 30 years later. The organizers of that conference have published a free PDF copy of SDRC if you look around a bit.
- _boffin_ 4y ago- Bitemporal Databases: Modeling and Implementation: https://www.amazon.com/Bitemporal-Databases-Canan-Eren-Atay/dp/3639131878 https://www.amazon.com/Bitemporal-Databases-Canan-Eren-Atay/... - Developing Time-Oriented Database Applications in SQL by Rich. Snodgrass: https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Time-Oriented-Database-Applications-Management/dp/1558604367 https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Time-Oriented-Database-App... ----- Anything by Joe Celko: - SQL for Smarties: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R17NZZC https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R17NZZC - SQL Programming Style: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006L21AO6 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006L21AO6 - Trees and Hierarchies in SQL for Smarties: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006Y8MKUU https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006Y8MKUU - Thinking in Sets: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AODZZC https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AODZZC ------- - SQL Antipatterns by Bill Karwin: https://www.amazon.com/SQL-Antipatterns-Programming-Pragmatic-Programmers/dp/1934356557 https://www.amazon.com/SQL-Antipatterns-Programming-Pragmati...