Relational Database Design with Microcomputer Applications

This book is a real find, a gem, and its a pity that its gone out of print. The author's treatment of functional dependency and lossy joins is unmatched. You will not find a better treatment in Fleming and Van Halle, you won't find a better treatment in Celko and you won't a better treatment in Date (they all touch on it in their discussions of normalization and Armstrong's rules, but none of them make it talk like Jackson)! As far as practicality is concerned, it is the epitome of utility. You cannot beat it with two sticks.Not knowing whether the author is still available to update it, the only limitation (or amusing feature) is in its references to the implementations (lets be honest, file based systems) available at the time, 1988, so its about as retro as you can get, (except possibly for Gio Wiederhold's informative and much more complete exposition Database Systems, about 1978?...testament to the fact that the more things change...) Given the quality of some of the database systems extant in SQL Server and Oracle, or some of the schemata I've seen supporting CRM or object orientation, its absolutely eloquent ...If you don't know what you're doing, the best tools in the world will not help you. If only those database practitioners had read this first! A must have.

The best book I've ever read about the Entity-Relationship Model. If you need learn about Entity-Relationship Model it's the book you must to buy.