Relational Database Design Clearly Exolained

My favorite opening line for the database courses I teach is: "Prob- ably the most misunderstood term in all of business computing is database, followed closely by the word relational." At that point, the students often snicker, because they are absolutely, positively sure that they know what a database is and that they also know what it means for a database to be relational. Unfortunately, the popular press, with the help of some software developers, long ago distort- ed the meaning of both those terms, which led many businesses to think that designing a database is a task that could be left to a cler- ical worker who had taken a few days training in using database software. As you will see throughout this book, nothing could be further from the truth.