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Book: Database Processing
Author: David M Kroenke
This is an odd one to have held on to for so long. Database Processing was a text book from my college database class. My degree from RIT was in Information Technology. This was a relatively new program that was trying to tech the practice of using computers to do things (application/multimedia development, networking, instructional technology) vs. a traditional CS degree which was trying to see if you could do math and grok pointers in two weeks.
I loved the program — (screw around with computers and get a degree) — but the professors I knew always seemed to be fighting for academic legitimacy and certification. So their database class was “here’s Access, let’s learn SQL and make an application”, but the textbook was “here are the fundamental underpinnings of RMDS theory”. I think all we really took from the book was normalization and the five normal forms.
I held on to this book because I’ve always wanted to go back and get that fundamental grounding and see how it compares with the real world. A few years back I spent some time looking into the source code of SQLite, getting overwhelmed, and then realizing that understanding databases on a fundamental level was something I wasn’t going to have time for until I retired.