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Even though I specifically requested this book from No Starch for review, I never really expected it to be a...comic book. OK, that's not quite right, as purists will no doubt remind me. Manga isn't quite the same thing as an American comic book, but it's close enough from my point of view. I rather had expected the book to work along the lines of O'Reilly's Head First series, where technical topics are presented in text but with lots of "hyperactive" photos, graphics, arrows, and the like. The Databases book is presented as a straight manga publication and was originally published as part of a Manga Guide series in Japan in 2004. To clarify my perceptions, I actually emailed Bill Pollock at No Starch to get a clearer understanding of how this book and book series is supposed to work. Once Bill straightened me out, I was ready to proceed.
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Like any other manga, this one tells a story, and the story has an underlying theme. Historically, "children's" entertainment in Japan has carried a moral or ethical message, with the main characters sometimes appearing to give small lessons in cooperation, listening to parents, and so on. This manga's message isn't a moral one so much as an educational one. The underlying message is what databases are, how they're designed and how they work. The book address the reader who has never been exposed to any information about databases before. In fact, the first chapter is "What is a Database?" Poor Princess Ruruna has quite a problem, you see. Her parents, the King and Queen, are away and have left her in charge of the kingdom's massive fruit selling business. Unfortunately, the system she's using to keep track of her data is woefully inadequate to the task. Enter Tico the Database Fairy. Full Story |
