best intro database book for nontechnical person

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+3 Q:

best intro database book for nontechnical person

What's a good intro database book for non-technical people? We have a user who will be managing some data and also be making some ad hoc queries.

This person is our "subject matter expert" and won't be designing the schema, but we want her to be able to understand more or less what we're doing and how to experiment with making queries useful to her. We're not interested in making her into a database developer, just hoping that she can understand the basics of tables, keys, queries, etc.

She doesn't have any CS training, but she's smart and has a PhD in her field.

+5 A:

The Manga Guide to Databases

I'm honestly not sure if I'm serious or not.

Chad Birch 2009-02-24 01:41:18

I bought a copy for our DBA as a joke. He thumbed through it and said it actually looked like it had good material :P

Dana 2009-02-24 01:43:52

looks like a fun book... I've ordered a copy to check out!

Mark Harrison 2009-02-24 08:15:36

+1 A:

I read Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days (http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-SQL-Days/dp/0672324512/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235439735&sr=8-1) many moons ago, and in less than 21 days was able to write sql.

Nathan Feger 2009-02-24 01:44:02

+4 A:

Head First SQL.

The "Head First" series is usually quite good at explaining technical concepts in a manner accessible to both beginners and experts.

(addition by Mark Harrison) There's a hands on web page where you can play with all the examples queries in the book... Neat!

Kevin 2009-02-24 01:44:05

Wow, I love their handson page. I've edited the answer so that people who don't normally read the comments can see the link. thanks!!

Mark Harrison 2009-02-24 08:15:05

OK, I'm going to be that guy. Your best strategy is to create some views or even aggregate and/or denormalized tables and just give her access to that, depending on how "live" her data needs to be.

Turning non technical people wild on databases without being careful can cause you a lot of headaches.

Charles Graham 2009-02-24 02:02:37

Good point, but that's not where we're heading. We need her to help us figure out if we've got the schema for her data right, and easy to query. Since she knows what information she wants, we can let her try querying and see if she can easily get the answers useful to her. Thanks!

Mark Harrison 2009-02-24 08:13:51

OK, now I really don't understand. Why not site down with her and explain how the tables are layed out and then determain what views and aggs to create with her?

Charles Graham 2009-02-25 06:55:02

We presently don't have a schema, don't know how the tables are laid out and don't know what data is going into the database coz she's the one (acting as Subject Matter Expert) helping us figure this out.

Mark Harrison 2009-02-25 22:05:47

ansaurus

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