Product Description

• Describes Agile Modeling Driven Design (AMDD) and Test–Driven Design (TDD) approaches, database refactoring, database encapsulation strategies, and tools that support evolutionary techniques
• Agile software developers often use object and relational database (RDB) technology together and as a result must overcome the impedance mismatch
• The author covers techniques for mapping objects to RDBs and for implementing concurrency control, referential integrity, shared business logic, security access control, reports, and XML
• An agile foundation describes fundamental skills that all agile software developers require, particularly Agile DBAs
• Includes object modeling, UML data modeling, data normalization, class normalization, and how to deal with legacy databases
• Scott W. Ambler is author of Agile Modeling (0471202827), a contributing editor with Software Development (www.sdmagazine.com), and a featured speaker at software conferences worldwide

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #276177 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From the Back Cover
"I wish I had a book like this eight years ago. You’ll want to be sure to have enough copies for both your development and database folks."
—Jon Kern, Founding Member of the Agile Alliance

"You will find workable, real–world advice here."
—Doug Barry, Author, Web Services and Service–Oriented Architectures and The Object Database Handbook

An agile database administrator (DBA) has the difficult task of focusing on data–oriented issues, including traditional database administration as well as any application development involving data. Agile DBAs also collaborate with enterprise professionals to ensure that the efforts of the project team reflect enterprise realities. Scott Ambler has written this invaluable book from the point of view of an agile DBA, enabling you to learn the techniques that agile DBAs use to work effectively on evolutionary (iterative and incremental) software projects.

With every chapter you’ll be introduced to essential facets of data–oriented activities such as:

• The basics of object orientation, relational databases, data modeling, and how to deal with legacy data issues
• Database refactoring, an evolutionary technique that enables you to improve your database design in small steps
• Mapping objects to relational databases, performance tuning, database encapsulation, and supporting tools
• Implementation techniques and strategies such as concurrency control, security access control, finding objects in relational databases, referential integrity, and the effective use of XML
• Strategies and advice for individuals who want to become agile software developers and organizations that want to adopt agile techniques

About the Author
SCOTT AMBLER is president and a senior consultant of Ronin International (www.ronin–intl.com), a software services consulting firm that specializes in software process mentoring and object/component–based software architecture and development. He is a contributing editor for Software Development magazine and a columnist for Computing Canada. His personal Web site is www.ambysoft.com.

Customer Reviews

Good but not what I expected
I purchased the book looking for guidance on how to apply agile techniques to the database environment.

The books covers a very broad range of subject right from the concepts of normal form to UML etc as covered by the other review.

What it doesn't do is talk about, TDD with regards to the database in the level of depth I expected (in fact there is little coverage of this area). I found this suprising given that more and more TDD is being adopted not just for languages like Java and C#, but also now that Microsoft Team Suite is including this into it's product.

Having said that the books is comprehensive in terms of it's coverage of database theory and it was an excellent refresher and would recommend the book for someone looking for a broad coverage of the database within companies.

go boldly beyond the persistence layer
This is very well written, enjoyable book, with few (if any) competitors. Given its agile sensitivities, it's perfect for a programmer looking for an overview of the whole data modelling she-bang, from use cases to impedance mismatch. Despite clocking in at 400 pages of fairly dense type, interspersed with various tables and UML diagrams, it's a breeze to read. It assumes a bit of knowledge of database technologies, but you don't need anything more than a nodding familiarity with SQL and basic concepts like normalisation.

This book deals with a lot of issues related to using databases as part of agile modelling. The main message is that agile application developers need to think about persistence issues, and database admins need to understand agile development. The differences between data-driven and object-driven models are clearly laid out, and there's an excellent section on refactoring databases.

The important thing about this book is not so much offering you specific solutions to problems, but alerting you to potential problems you might not even know exist, and explaining that you do have options in solving them. As well as introducing agile methods like TDD and refactoring, it also covers database issues like transactions, security, concurrency and object-relational mapping.

Additionally, there is an emphasis on the organisational and political issues you might face in transitioning to agile methodologies, and it's very pragmatic in pointing out that some things that might be considered the preserve of an application developer, could be done in the database itself. The issues are presented at the same level of detail as those presented in the likes of The Pragmatic Programmer (but a different subject, of course). For more specifics, you will need to turn to the likes of Martin Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, or to see specific technologies being used, Chris Richardson's POJOs in Action. I would definitely recommend this book before reading those.

As someone with little knowledge of databases, I found this an excellent and unique resource to join up the dots when it comes to persistence and agile.