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    <p>The best book I've read on the design of database systems was "An Introduction to Database Systems". Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties books are also worth reading. Assuming you're building an application and not just a database, and assuming you're using an Object Oriented language, Applying UML and Patterns by Craig Larman has a good discussion on mapping databases to objects. </p> <p>In terms of defining "good", in my experience "maintainable" is probably top of the list. Maintainability in database design means many things, such as sticking to conventions - I often recommend <a href="http://justinsomnia.org/2003/04/essential-database-naming-conventions-and-style/" rel="nofollow">http://justinsomnia.org/2003/04/essential-database-naming-conventions-and-style/</a>. Normalization is another obvious maintainability strategy. I often recommend being generous with column types - it's hard to change an application if you find out that postal codes in different countries are longer than in the US. I often recommend using views to abstract complex data relations away for less experienced developers. </p> <p>A key thing with maintainability is the ability to test and deploy. It's worth reading up about Continuous Database Integration (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/architecture/Database_CI.aspx) - whilst not strictly associated with the design of the database schema, it's important context.</p> <p>As for performance - I believe you should design for maintainability first, and only design for performance if you know you have a problem. Sometimes, you know in advance that performance will be a major problem - designing a database for Facebook (or Stack Exchange), designing a database with huge amounts of data (terabytes and up), or huge numbers of users. Most systems don't fall into that camp - so I recommend regular performance tests, with representative data, to find if you have a problem, and only tune when you can prove you have to. Many performance optimizations are at the expense of maintainability - denormalization, for instance. </p> <p>Oh, and in general, avoid triggers and stored procedures if you can. That's just my opinion, though...</p>
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