Stairway to Database Design

New to the task of designing and creating a database? Joe Celko, who is one of the most widely read of all writers about SQL, explains the basics. As usual, he comes up with the occasional surprise for even the most seasoned database professional. Joe was the winner of the DBMS Magazine Reader's Choice Award four consecutive years. He has taught SQL in the US, UK, the Nordic countries, South America and Africa. He served 10 years on ANSI/ISO SQL Standards Committee and contributed to the SQL-89 and SQL-92 Standards.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 1: Data Elements

  Before you start to think about your database schema or tables, you need to consider your data: the type of data it is, the scale you use for values. It needs to be unique, precise and unambiguous. Then you need to name it in such a way that it can be generally understood. Joe Celko explains...

• Stairway to Database Design Level 2: Domains, Constraints and Defaults

  A clear understanding of SQL Data Types and domains is a fundamental requirement for the Database Developer, but it is not elementary. If you select the most appropriate data type, it can sidestep a variety of errors. Furthermore, if you then define the data domains as exactly as possible via constraints, you can catch a variety of those problems that would otherwise bedevil the work of the application programmer.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 3: Building Tables

  There are several types of tables, each with their special requirements for rules and integrity constraints. Whatever the requirement, table-level constraints will ensure that the rules are enforced and data integrity is maintained.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 4: Building a Schema

  Having described tables, Joe Celko explains how to make them work together as a database and touches on what Entity Relationships and Views are.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 5: Procedures

  Joe Celko tackles the subject of the Stored Procedure and its place in database design. What he writes is food for thought, even for experienced database developers.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 6: Procedure Bodies

  Having covered the procedure headers in SQL Server in the previous level, Joe tackles the subject of the contents of stored procedures. In this level, he outlines limitations of TSQL as a procedural language, and what you need to bear in mind when deciding how to use them.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 7: Triggers

  In levels one to four, we built the tables, base and virtual, of a schema. Levels five and six dealt with stored procedures. This level deals with a feature you need to avoid as much as possible; this is article is on Triggers.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 8: Cursors

  This final level to the first landing completes the basics of a SQL database, by explaining what cursors are and why you should never use them.

• Stairway to Database Design Level 9: Normalization

  In the final step of Database Design, Joe Celko gives a simple but effective explanation of the normalization process and why it is important.