INTRODUCTION DATABASE

- The OBJECTIVES of the discipline

- The IMPORTANCE of the discipline

- The CONTENT of the course

1.1. - The OBJECTIVES of the discipline

You will do in this semester a course in INTRODUCTION TO DATABASE SYSTEMS. You will have also a lot of laboratory works - namely 2 hours weekly for each working group of students and also an hour of seminar.

You will not have in this semester project activities. But we are going to meet again in the fourth year of your studies, when we shall continue our work in teaching the DATABASE DESIGN topics and then you will have to prepare a semester project in DATABASE - SYSTEMS.

This discipline, which you are going to study along two semesters, is a very practical discipline. It will teach you not only theoretical concepts for designing DATA - STRUCTURES and PROCEDURES, but also will help you to construct actual projects for DATA - PROCESSING and in this manner to make a very useful and valuable work for many users.

1.2. - The IMPORTANCE of the discipline

The interest related to the DATABASES arose in the early 60's. With time passing this interest was not only maintained but grew continuously with the development of DATA PROCESSING technology. Many other processing languages, methods and techniques, that created great sensation during that period, were for long time already forgotten, while the DATABASES find permanently new ways of development:

- The INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS - viewed as a DATABASE SYSTEMS

- The DATABASES for LOGICAL PROGRAMMING

- The DATABASES for TEXT and METATEXT PROCESSING

- The GRAPHICAL DATABASES for CAD

- The DATABASES for GIS (Geographical Information Systems)

- The DEDUCTIVE DATABASES

- The OBJECT ORIENTED DATABASES

- The INTELLIGENT DATABASES

are all only a part of the multiple domains of using the concepts of DATABASES.

We can say that there is not at this time a real application without a kind of DATABASES for defining and manipulating the DATA STRUCTURES in the computer storage.

In that lines of ideas it is very suggestive the great number of packages for DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS that can be found at this time on the software market, for all types of computers and processing technologies.

The DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS can be found at the top three of the most needed, requested, sold and used software products.

For all these reasons the DATABASE DESIGN is a very important discipline in COMPUTER SCIENCE. Three of the marks you will get during the nine semesters of study will be at this discipline.

If you want to get in the future a job as professional designer in DATA PROCESSING you will have to prove real knowledge in DATABASE DESIGN. In this respect I will try to meet a part of you again, after the nine study semesters, on the labor-market.

1.2. - The CONTENT of the course

In this semester you must assimilate the following knowledge:

- From the course - the basic concepts of DATABASES namely:

The main characteristics of a Database System

Levels of abstraction in Databases

The Architecture of a DBMS

The Relational Data Model

Relational Data Structures Definition

Physical Data Structures

The Comparison of the Hierarchical, Network and Relational Schemas

Relational Data Manipulation Languages

Generation of the Relational Structures and Normalization

- From the laboratory works - the architecture and the practical use of a relational DBMS

Working with a programming environment associated with a DBMS (tools and facilities)

Working with a Data Definition Language (DDL)

Working with a Data Manipulation Language (DML)

A procedural language (navigation within the DATABASE)

A nonprocedural language (Structured Query Language version - SQL)