Stairway to Data

IT projects can hit problems that turn out to be due to an insufficient understanding of the basic data and data-types, rather than the database design. It is a sorely neglected topic that might seem to be trivial, but certainly isn't. The DBA, with a broad perspective on corporate data can do a great deal to help application developers to avoid the common mistakes that so often happen, and Joe Celko's Stairway gives the busy IT professional a crash course to understanding the nature of the data being processed.

• Stairway to Data, Level 1: The Basics

  A great deal of the confusion that occurs when a database application is developed comes from a poor understanding of the basics of data. Here, Joe Celko gives a broad coverage of the difficulties you're likely to meet when handling data in databases.

• Stairway to Data, Level 2: Numerics

  A confusion about the nature of numbers can lead to a number of problems in database applications. Joe Celko gives a simple guide to the subject

• Stairway to Data, Level 3: Strings

  Character-handling in SQL is not particularly straightforward, and confusion about collation and character encoding is a common cause of problems with searching, joining, and sorting.

• Stairway to Data, Level 4: Temporal Data

  Joe Celko tackles the most difficult of all the types of data handled by SQL, temporal data, and explains how to avoid the commonest traps for the unwary programmer

• Stairway to Data, Level 5: Types of Scales – Part I

  Joe Celko discusses Nominal, Categorical, Absolute, Ordinal and Rank scales. These are the weakest scales we can use, starting with the weakest.

• Stairway to Data, Level 6: Types of Scales - Part II

  Joe Celko introduces more powerful scales such as Interval, Log interval and ratio scales; before moving on to conversions, punctuation and units. Finally he gives guidelines as to how best to use scales in a database.

• Stairway to Data, Level 7: Data Encoding Schemes - Part I

  Joe discusses how to deal with the kinds of encoding schemes, how to use them and how to design them. He discusses Enumeration, Measurement, Abbreviation and Algorithmic categories

• Stairway to Data, Level 8: Data Encoding Schemes - Part II

  Joe discusses Hierarchical, Vector and Concatenation encoding before rounding up with general guidelines for designing encoding schemes.