All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death, no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
 – T.S. Eliot, The Rock, 1934

  1. Database Management Systems — Focus on Sections 1, 4 (intro only), 7 & 7.1.

    1. Distinguish between database and database management system.
    2. A DBMS is a program that generally provides facilities for what four things?
    3. What is the significance of E.F. Codd’s paper “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks”?
    4. What were database systems like before the development of the relational model?
    5. Compare and contrast external, conceptual vs. internal schemata (aka, views).

  2. Relational Model — Focus on the overview and Sections 3 & 4.

    1. Who developed the relational model?
    2. What does it mean for a model to be declarative?
    3. Be able to explain and use the following concepts: relation, tuple, column, field, NULL, integrity, primary and foreign keys.
    4. Compare and contrast relational keys and traditional pointers.
    5. Considering the example given in Section 4, is the relational model object-oriented?

  3. Re-read Postman’s article: “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change”, focusing on the third of his ideas.

    1. Briefly name Postman’s five ideas.
    2. Describe his third idea and explain whether or not you agree with him.

  4. Technology Stack

    1. PostgreSQL & Azure Database for PostgreSQL— We will use PostgreSQL as the Database Management System (DBMS) in this course as implemented on Azure. Before the lab:

      1. Create a Microsoft Azure for Students account as specified on the CS Systems Administration services page.
      2. Create an Azure PostgreSQL database as specified by this Quickstart tutorial. Notes:
        • Specify PostgreSQL authentication only.
        • Remember your Admin ID and password.
        • Turn off require_secure_transport.
        With this in place, you can “Connect” to your database using your admin password and execute SQL commands. You’ll do this in the lab.