Is it though? I mean, isn't the appeal of a relational DBMS that it is a black box to the user and it's the query planner's job to yield an efficient search for a given goal? That job will be easier, if the DBMS developers are free to chose internal representation as needed and aren't bound by earlier disclosed details.
The book is still great, and some of us like to dig into database internals :)
It's by no means a requirement to use the database
> I mean, isn't the appeal of a relational DBMS that it is a black box to the user and it's the query planner's job to yield an efficient search for a given goal?