CSC056-Z1- Database Management Systems
Hofstra University - Fall 2005
Instructor: Vinnie Costa
Phone: (212) 438-3269
E-Mail:vcosta@optonline.net (preferred)
vincent_costa@mcgraw-hill.com
Class Meets: Saturdays, 8:15-12PM, and Sundays, 9/11 & 10/2, in Starr Hall Rm: 0205
Office hours: After class in Adams 210 or by appointment

October 15, 2005

News

The Hundred Dollar Man
Technology Review (10/13/05); Pontin, Jason
Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's Media Lab, believes that the elimination of profits, costly displays, and proprietary software will enable him to build a laptop that costs less than $100. Education ministries in underdeveloped countries would purchase hundreds of millions of them and distribute them freely to children in Negroponte's vision that holds technology as central to education in the developing world. To fund the widespread purchase of inexpensive laptops, Negroponte said that a variety of options are being considered, such as UN relief and World Bank financing. Negroponte allows for some latitude in the figure of $100, though he hopes to ultimately bring the cost below that mark. He rejects reconfigured, second hand desktops due to the high costs of installing software and shipping, and believes that using mobile devices such as cell phones would compromise the reading experience. To those who are concerned that cheap laptops could be the frequent target of theft, Negroponte answers that saturating the market would ensure that there was not a secondary market for the computers, thereby eliminating the incentive for stealing them. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization set up to oversee the project is working with organizations such as the UN to address issues concerning demand and distribution. Negroponte stresses that OLPC has the singular goal of treating computers and online access as basic human rights, and that concerns about profitability would inherently conflict with universal implementation of the program.
Click Here to View Full Article

Syllabus

Syllabus
This is the latest syllabus for the course. It is subject to revision.

Slides

Session 1
Overview of Database Systems - Types of databases, RDBMS, representations, concurrency, locking, main components, the life of a DBA
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 2
Introduction To DataBase Design - Design steps, the ER model, guidelines, constraints, the UML model
Practicum: Apache, Nvu, HTML, CSS
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Sessions 3 & 4
The Relational Model - Relation schema, integrity constraints, create, modify, query tables with SQL, ER diagrams to tables
Practicum: PHP, MySQL
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 5
Relational Algebra And Calculus - Foundations of the SQL language, relational algebra, basic operators
SQL: Queries - Basics of the SQL language, expressing queries, grouping, nesting, null values, and triggers
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 6
Database Application Developemnt - Connecting to a DBMS, cursors, JDBC, SQLJ, stored procedures
Practicum: Acessing MySQL through PHP
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 7
Internet Applications - Resource names on the INternet, how webservers and browsers communicate, formatting, three-tier application architecture, application servers, maintaining state
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 8
Practicum: The major components of the WAMP application
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 9
Additional Application Topics - Storage and Indexing, Query Evaluation, Schema Refinement and Normal Forms, Physical Database Design, and Security and Authorization
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).
Session 10
Semi-Structured Data - How is XML data different from plain text and relational tables? What is XQuery and XPath?
This is available in Power Point and PDF format (hold shift key to download).

Text

Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke, Database Management Systems, 3/e, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2003, 1065pp., ISBN 0-07-246563-8

Exams

Midterm
This is the MidTerm Exam (PDF Format).
Final
This is the Final Exam (PDF Format).

Documents

LAMP Lights Enterprise Development Efforts, by George Lawton - This is what we have been working on in class. A set of open source technologies is pushing its way into mainstream corporate software development: the LAMP stack, which includes the Linux operating system, APache Web server, MySQL database, and scripting languages PERL, PHP, and Python. There is also a discussion about two major products built of LAMP: ActiveGrid and SugarCRM.
IEEE Computer, September 2005 (Vol. 38, No. 9) pp. 18-20

MySQL Commands, by Gnanawathy (Yanna) Hareendran - These are Yanna's notes on using MySQL to create, modify, and delete tables. Also available in Word format. Tnx, Yanna!

Beyond Relational Databases, by Margo Seltzer, SleepyCat - Many of the new services today involve text and message retrieval. A common attribute that is shared by all of them is a need for data storage and retrieval functions built into the application. Relational databases come to mind. Relational databases have been tremendously successful over the past 30 years, with SQL the dominant method of access. This is what we'll be studying this semester - data management has become almost synonymous with RDBMS. However, there are an increasing number of applications for which lighter-weight alternatives are more appropriate. This excellent article discusses the limitations of the relational systems in the emerging service environment and presents very interesting alternatives.
ACM Queue vol. 3, no. 3 - April 2005

Last Modified 10/15/2005