Rating: 

For those not familiar with C. J. Date, let me offer this: he is a profound and prolific contributor in the field of data, databases, database systems, and the languages used therein. His thoughts and ideas have always been carefully considered and captured in well written, painstakingly correct but nontheless entirely readable prose.

This book is a much smaller tome than Date's "Database Systems" -- detailed and formal explanations will have to be found elsewhere. This book doesn't touch upon the topics covered in Date's (and others) "Temporal Data" -- the scope is strictly limited to the relational model.

There is very little new in this book - I detected only a few slightly different descriptions of things I've read (and heard - lucky me!) from Date over the past few years. But the material which is included is well organized and very polished.

As Date points out, our understanding of the relational model is maturing. More exciting to me is that, in recent years, our ability to describe the relational model seems to be improving more than our ability to understand it. This is due in large part to Date's efforts.

I'm completely glad to have this small volume in hand. If you embrace the relational model and are a practitioner, you will be, too.