Comprehensive, unique, and accessible, Database: Models, Languages, Design is an ideal text for the introductory computer science course in database theory. It can also serve as a self-study guide for database practitioners. Through his useful organization of the material and his comprehensive, lucid explanations of the concepts, Johnson provides a clear introduction to both traditional and modern topics in database theory. Use of a running example set (an aquarium database) throughout provides a strong sense of continuity.
This text describes five database models which represent current practice (the relational model), trends (the object-oriented and deductive models), and past experiences (the network and hierarchical models). Students can easily follow the evolution from one model to the next because the same features are covered for each type of database.