Appendix
Wouldn’t it be fitting if a book on modeling was itself modeled after something? Well, it has been! This book follows a spiral model, starting from a high-level overview of modeling and rising in winding loops, revisiting its core elements in ever-greater depth and complexity. This may seem like an unorthodox approach, but I believe that the difficulty of the technical how is alleviated by the understanding of the conceptual why. As such, I made it a point not to presuppose any modeling knowledge beyond a basic understanding of SQL and to never lean on a term or concept before formally introducing it.
Following a helical structure while writing this text allowed me to carve out a clear path from the theoretical to the technical and kept me from drifting into areas that were not core to the central theme. Inevitably, some exercises had to be excluded because they did not cleanly fit within the framework of the chapters. Rather than leave them on the proverbial cutting...