[comp.databases] Won Kim's book on Object Oriented Databases

bapat@rm1.UUCP (Subodh Bapat) (01/29/91)

I'm wondering if there's anyone out there who's had a chance to read the
new book "An Introduction to Object-Oriented Databases" by Won Kim, the
noted MCC/Orion authority on the subject. If there is, I'd appreciate
you sharing your critical reactions - I'm just trying to get some feedback
on whether it's worth buying and keeping.

(Being familiar with Won Kim's earlier work, I'd guess it probably is).


-- 
Subodh Bapat              bapat@rm1.uu.net     OR           ...uunet!rm1!bapat
                          Racal-Milgo, Ft Lauderdale

bapat@rm1.UUCP (Subodh Bapat) (02/05/91)

In article <994@rm1.UUCP>, I asked:

> I'm wondering if there's anyone out there who's had a chance to read the
> new book "An Introduction to Object-Oriented Databases" by Won Kim, the
> noted MCC/Orion authority on the subject. If there is, I'd appreciate
> you sharing your critical reactions - I'm just trying to get some feedback
> on whether it's worth buying and keeping.
> 
> (Being familiar with Won Kim's earlier work, I'd guess it probably is).

I received one comprehensive reply to the above request, as well as numerous
RFIs. Anyway, I went out and finally bought it, and have skimmed through most
of it. For all the RFIs and anyone else interested:

  Here is a brief wrap-up of the book. It is the first comprehensive book
  of its kind on the subject, and is certainly not for the beginner.
  It supplies a fairly comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art
  in OODBMS architecture and design. Naturally, the slant is towards
  Kim's own work on Orion, along with some of his pioneering work on
  schema evolution. Implementation aspects - such as the representation
  and layout of objects at the physical level, concurrency, distributed
  objects, etc - are also discussed.  Future directions are discussed both 
  with respect to commercial products as well as academic research. 

  For those already familiar with Won Kim's work, there is little new
  material here - much of it is his previous work collected and 
  digestified. However, an important benefit is that it is now all
  in one place, and one doesn't have to go traipsing through a number
  of OOPSLAs, SIGMODs and JOOPs in order to obtain material on the
  subject. For those who have more than just a passing interest in the
  subject, it's worth buying.

  For interested parties:

     "An Introduction to Object-Oriented Databases", by Won Kim
     The MIT Press, 1990
     ISBN 0-262-11124-1
     QA76.9.D3K54

-- 
Subodh Bapat              bapat@rm1.uu.net     OR           ...uunet!rm1!bapat
                          Racal-Milgo, Ft Lauderdale