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Transcript Text
foreign [Music] welcome to another discussion about why learn a specific language we put together a little sort of summary a few weeks back about languages in general learning languages how do you make that decision and it really felt like we wanted some specifics for some of the more common types of questions and languages that are out there this time we want to talk about SQL or SQL and this is an interesting one because it's a lot of people are going to say why would you choose SQL isn't it really just a database language and more or less yes it is you're not going to use SQL if you're not dealing with a with querying that's what SQL stands for it's structured query language so it is a way to query against a database now the good news is it is used in some form and most if not all databases I in all of the languages all the databases I've dealt with I have not come across one that doesn't actually recognize SQL even object-oriented databases that have their own query script usually in their own form there is still a way to access the data with SQL now it doesn't look the same because the structure is very different but there is a a rudimentary form of SQL that is that is used even there now that's not to say that all of them are there may be some that don't but it is really the common language for working with data and by working with I mean like it's selecting it and doing inserts and updates and deletes and things of that nature and aggregations and things that are so it's not just pulling the data but actually doing manipulations of the data now SQL is one of the more common languages because data is everywhere no matter what your application is there's data there whether it's about your users whether it's about your products whether it's about your services whether the data is the application whether it is manipulating data whether it is calculating against data you're going to find data and it's part of every application in some way form or fashion and that may be because you need some reporting or you may need to relate data back and forth so you need to search through the data to find certain records or you may need to combine or aggregate the data the nice thing is with SQL it does all of these things it is the most sort of the common denominator of those types of queries those types of tasks with data and it is a solid static kind of language it is not changing a lot while there are definitely extensions with various databases if you look at the core SQL things you're going to do it's going to look the same everywhere the naming you know the naming convention is maybe a little different things like that but if you do select star from my table where my value equals three that's going to be almost identical in every single database you look at now you may have to adjust stuff a little bit there may be things around that but usually if you take that and you run it as long as those objects and things exist you're going to get data back and it's going to look basically the same from database to database to database so that makes it in itself something that's nice to have because like another language we've talked about JavaScript when you have something that you learn that is going to be used regardless wherever you're at you get to keep using it it's not going to get rusty it's going to stay current and it's something also probably because you're going to use it maybe on a daily basis you're going to build your skills you're going to build your confidence you're going to master that sooner rather than later because you're actually putting it to use now a thing about SQL that's interesting these days is because there are a lot of tools out there that allow you to quickly browse and work within data they essentially hide the complexity though of the queries and they sort of block you from more complex queries but they do allow you to quickly go browse data if you go to like a DB visualizer or if you go out and use a DB admin or PHP admin or whatever you know PG admin whatever those the varying types of those tools or toad or something like that you can go in you can quickly browse tables databases schemas whatever it is store procedures triggers look at source code write code insert update records added them on the Fly things like that so those tools definitely have their place and they are useful and as a SQL Developer you're probably going to want to keep those tools and use those however they're not always going to be available to an application and the queries you can write are going to be far more powerful than probably every tool because those tools are going to be solving for a general case where you can write a tuned specific query for whatever your purposes are and that sometimes is going to make the difference in something being useful or just sit on a Shelf particularly these days as we get into larger data sets if you can't work with the query language and help it help itself basically so that you can get answers back in a reasonable amount of time if you're dealing with you know terabytes of data that stuff can get out of hand quick so you want to be able to use this to benefit your applications you also like I said you're not going to be able to use those those other tools within applications sometimes there are there's going to be Frameworks in libraries but usually you're going to be better off if you at least understand what's going on underneath the the covers and also if you can write your own like raw SQL queries because then you can more specifically solve the problems you need to solve and not have a overly large use of of resources or time or anything like that it also can allow you in some cases to get things done faster because you're not waiting for the quote database team to get some work done you can actually write the couple of pieces of code you need and you move forward and you're off and running now as I mentioned SQL is used in many many projects across many Industries and platforms you're probably not going to see yeah I was gonna say you're probably not going to see SQL as a primary job request or position but you will see database developer or database administrator and there are in a not as a career not as a salary employee but as a project you will see projects that are hey we've got problems database isn't working right we need somebody to tune or do a performance review of our SQL queries of our queries of our database and find ways to help us do what we're doing better so just knowing SQL is great but actually we'll say mastering it also has its benefits and can open doors to projects that many people aren't going to touch because it is one of those things that while SQL is very common a lot of people know how to do it when you get into the performance tuning side of it and really writing tight specific queries those skills are are less common you can that's sort of a rarity now the nice thing is it's popular it's one of the best documented languages out there probably every vendor every database has got some some basic SQL documentation sitting out on their site somewhere uh you're gonna have to watch out for the vendor specific extensions and tweaks however you're going to be able to find examples you're going to be able to find a lot of tutorials that are generic and also vendor specific so if you want content if you want a way to help yourself learn SQL is one of those language it's it has got a plethora of options for you to work with now database knowledge in general and SQL in particular is also for those of you that are newer to the development world they're often a way to separate Junior from senior developers or even you know mid-level level developers I have seen data seen developers and worked with developers that have limited database skills a little bit limited or just a little bit of SQL knowledge and they really struggle to advance Beyond about a mid-level you know mid-tier developer job because by the time you get to a senior expected to understand data and how to work with it how it works how it should work how to access it and not be Reliant entirely on a framework or a library or a tool or a database developer so while it is probably not a language you're going to want as your first language it could be I mean you're gonna you're sort of you're setting your path up for your decree your career in a specific way if you start with SQL it means you're going to be database first probably for your whole career it's going to be difficult to get out of that however once you've settled in on a couple of languages if you don't have SQL at least to a level where you're comfortable with it I've again strongly recommend take a look at it spend some time check some stuff out there look at some of the documentation so that you do get to a point where you're comfortable with it it is in general better to learn it sooner rather than later get in there spend a little bit of time even if you're not mastering it just so you understand the basic idea of what's a select what's an insert what's an update look like what does a where Clause look like how do I order those kinds of things and at least what is a trigger what is a store procedure what do those look like how do I call them those are some of the things that I think are going to be very valuable and sooner rather than later you will find that it allows you to to Really expand the type of work you can do type of problems you can solve and the applications you can build because you can't be full stack if you don't have some sort of a database knowledge and usually that's going to be SQL of some sort now the bonus is we do have some classes out on this YouTube we've got some SQL a whole series of learning SQL walk through a bunch of examples do it with mySQL which is free easily available so you don't have to go far to spend a little bit of time and these are they're basically 10 to 15 minute Snippets of stuff you could probably spend an hour or two today and in the day being moderately comfortable with SQL enough that you could get around and you know maybe you're not going to be building a database but at least you can get data out of a database which you know that's probably the important thing initially because somebody else is you know if you don't know it somebody else will have built it for you thanks a lot for your time I hope this helped if you have any questions shoot us an email at info developpanur.com and go out there and have yourself a great day hello this is Rob with developmentor also known as building better developers wanting to announce that we have school.developmentor.com feel free to check it out if you like any of this information any of the content that we've sent and you would like to see more you can come out you can enroll for free we have free courses we've got places for you to get better at just learning a technology our how to's you can work on your business skills we can help you with becoming a better developer as encoding and things like that a lot of the stuff you've seen on YouTube we also have out at school.developing or we just have it a little more of a educational format and a way for you to track your progress as you move forward becoming a better developer thank you
Transcript Segments
foreign
[Music]
welcome to another discussion about why
learn a specific language
we put together a little
sort of summary a few weeks back
about languages in general learning
languages how do you make that decision
and it really felt like we wanted some
specifics for some of the more common
types of questions and languages that
are out there
this time we want to talk about SQL or
SQL
and this is an interesting one because
it's a lot of people are going to say
why would you choose SQL isn't it really
just a database language and more or
less yes it is you're not going to use
SQL if you're not dealing with
a with querying that's what SQL stands
for it's structured query language so it
is a way to query against a database
now
the good news is it is used in some form
and most if not all databases I in all
of the languages all the databases I've
dealt with I have not come across one
that doesn't actually recognize SQL even
object-oriented databases that have
their own query script usually in their
own form
there is still a way to access the data
with SQL now it doesn't look the same
because the structure is very different
but there is a a rudimentary form of SQL
that is that is used even there now
that's not to say that all of them are
there may be some that don't but
it is really the common language for
working with data and by working with I
mean like it's selecting it and doing
inserts and updates and deletes and
things of that nature and
aggregations and things that are so it's
not just pulling the data but actually
doing manipulations of the data
now SQL is one of the more common
languages because data is everywhere
no matter what your application is
there's data there whether it's about
your users whether it's about your
products whether it's about your
services whether the data is the
application whether it is manipulating
data whether it is calculating against
data you're going to find data and it's
part of every application in some way
form or fashion
and that may be because you need some
reporting or you may need to relate data
back and forth so you need to search
through the data to find certain records
or you may need to combine or aggregate
the data the nice thing is with SQL it
does all of these things it is the
most sort of the common denominator of
those types of queries those types of
tasks with data
and it is
a solid
static kind of language it is not
changing a lot while there are
definitely extensions with various
databases if you look at the core SQL
things you're going to do
it's going to look the same everywhere
the naming you know the naming
convention is maybe a little different
things like that but if you do select
star from my table
where my value equals three
that's going to be almost identical in
every single database you look at
now you may have to adjust stuff a
little bit there may be things around
that but usually if you take that and
you run it
as long as those objects and things
exist you're going to get data back and
it's going to look basically the same
from database to database to database
so that makes it in itself something
that's nice to have because like another
language we've talked about JavaScript
when you have something that you learn
that is going to be used
regardless wherever you're at
you get to keep using it it's not going
to get rusty it's going to stay current
and it's something also probably because
you're going to use it maybe on a daily
basis
you're going to build your skills you're
going to build your confidence you're
going to master that sooner rather than
later because you're actually putting it
to use
now a thing about SQL that's interesting
these days is because there are a lot of
tools out there that allow you to
quickly browse and work within data
they essentially hide the complexity
though of the queries and they sort of
block you from more complex queries
but they do allow you to quickly go
browse data if you go to like a DB
visualizer or if you go out and use a DB
admin or PHP admin or whatever you know
PG admin whatever those
the varying types of those tools or toad
or something like that you can go in you
can quickly browse tables databases
schemas whatever it is store procedures
triggers look at source code write code
insert update records added them on the
Fly things like that
so those tools definitely have their
place
and they are useful and as a SQL
Developer you're probably going to want
to keep those tools and use those
however
they're not always going to be available
to an application and the queries you
can write are going to be far more
powerful than probably every tool
because those tools are going to be
solving for a general case where you can
write a
tuned specific query for whatever your
purposes are
and that sometimes is going to make the
difference in something being useful or
just sit on a Shelf
particularly these days as we get into
larger data sets
if you can't work with the query
language and help it
help itself basically so that you can
get answers back in a reasonable amount
of time
if you're dealing with you know
terabytes of data
that stuff can get out of hand quick
so you want to be able to use this
to
benefit your applications you also like
I said you're not going to be able to
use those those other tools within
applications sometimes there are there's
going to be Frameworks in libraries but
usually you're going to be better off if
you at least understand what's going on
underneath the the covers and also if
you can write your own like raw SQL
queries because then you can more
specifically solve the problems you need
to solve and not have a overly large use
of of resources or time or anything like
that
it also can allow you in some cases to
get things done faster because you're
not waiting for the quote database team
to get some work done you can actually
write the couple of pieces of code you
need and you move forward and you're off
and running
now as I mentioned SQL is used in many
many projects across many Industries and
platforms you're probably not going to
see
yeah I was gonna say you're probably not
going to see SQL as a primary job
request or position but you will see
database developer or database
administrator and there are in a not as
a career not as a salary employee but as
a project you will see projects that are
hey we've got problems database isn't
working right we need somebody to tune
or do a performance review of our SQL
queries of our queries of our database
and find ways to help us do what we're
doing better
so just knowing SQL is great but
actually
we'll say mastering it also has its
benefits and can open doors to projects
that
many people aren't going to touch
because
it is one of those things that while SQL
is very common a lot of people know how
to do it when you get into the
performance tuning side of it and really
writing tight specific queries
those skills are are less common you can
that's sort of a rarity
now the nice thing is it's popular it's
one of the best documented languages out
there probably every vendor every
database has got some some basic SQL
documentation sitting out on their site
somewhere
uh you're gonna have to watch out for
the vendor specific extensions and
tweaks however you're going to be able
to find examples you're going to be able
to find a lot of tutorials that are
generic and also vendor specific
so if you want content if you want a way
to help yourself learn
SQL is one of those language it's it has
got a plethora of options for you to
work with
now database knowledge in general and
SQL in particular is also for those of
you that are newer to the development
world they're often a way to separate
Junior from senior developers or even
you know mid-level level developers I
have seen data seen developers and
worked with developers that have limited
database skills a little bit limited or
just a little bit of SQL knowledge
and they really struggle to advance
Beyond about a mid-level you know
mid-tier developer job because by the
time you get to a senior expected to
understand data and how to work with it
how it works how it should work how to
access it
and not be Reliant entirely on a
framework or a library or a tool or a
database developer
so while it is
probably not a language you're going to
want as your first language it could be
I mean
you're gonna you're sort of
you're setting your path up for your
decree your career in a specific way if
you start with SQL it means you're going
to be database first probably for your
whole career it's going to be difficult
to get out of that however once you've
settled in on a couple of languages if
you don't have SQL
at least to a level where you're
comfortable with it I've again strongly
recommend take a look at it spend some
time
check some stuff out there look at some
of the documentation so that you do get
to a point where you're comfortable with
it
it is in general better to learn it
sooner rather than later
get in there spend a little bit of time
even if you're not mastering it just so
you understand the basic idea of what's
a select what's an insert what's an
update look like what does a where
Clause look like how do I order those
kinds of things and at least what is a
trigger what is a store procedure what
do those look like how do I call them
those are some of the things that I
think are going to be very valuable and
sooner rather than later you will find
that it allows you to to Really expand
the type of work you can do type of
problems you can solve and the
applications you can build because you
can't be full stack if you don't have
some sort of a database knowledge and
usually that's going to be SQL of some
sort
now the bonus is we do have some classes
out on this YouTube we've got some SQL a
whole series of learning SQL walk
through a bunch of examples do it with
mySQL which is free easily available
so you don't have to go far to spend a
little bit of time and these are they're
basically 10 to 15 minute
Snippets of stuff you could probably
spend an hour or two today
and in the day being moderately
comfortable with SQL enough that you
could get around and you know maybe
you're not going to be building a
database but at least you can get data
out of a database which you know that's
probably the important thing initially
because somebody else is you know if you
don't know it somebody else will have
built it for you
thanks a lot for your time I hope this
helped if you have any questions shoot
us an email at info developpanur.com and
go out there and have yourself a great
day
hello this is Rob with developmentor
also known as building better developers
wanting to announce that we have
school.developmentor.com feel free to
check it out if you like any of this
information any of the content that
we've sent and you would like to see
more you can come out you can enroll for
free we have free courses we've got
places for you to get better at just
learning a technology our how to's you
can work on your business skills we can
help you with becoming a better
developer as encoding and things like
that a lot of the stuff you've seen on
YouTube we also have out at
school.developing or we just have it a
little more of a educational format and
a way for you to track your progress as
you move forward becoming a better
developer
thank you