Tuesday, February 12, 2013

SQL - The Language of Databases

SQL is a programing language that is very specialized and focused. While most programing languages can  be used to do a very complex series of different tasks, SQL is designed to do one complex task very, very well. The task that SQL is designed for is working with databases.

As David said, a database is just a huge, glorified excel sheet. This may sound great, but if it is put into scope, it becomes quite daunting. Like John, I have had some basic experience with coding, mostly Javascript and python, and so far I have only dealt with arrays, which are essentially very tiny databases, and trying to use the core language to something as simple as remove an element and add another takes a surprising amount of code to do properly. I have not personal experience with SQL, but if editing a database is as easy as some of the guides I found seem to indicate, it looks like it could be a real time saver and make database use so much easier.

As both speakers who have come to our class have said, the drawing programs we use to complete our projects are really just databases with a graphical interface. If you break it down far enough, every click is really just using a giant algorithm to find what you want out of the databases and present it to you in a way that is easy for you to understand. If you connect the dots, that means that the drawing programs we use to make these incredible projects, are really just glorified excel programs. This idea may be mind blowing at first, but just remember, everything the computer does breaks down into 1s and 0s eventually.

So if databases are the source behind even complex drawing programs, I think it is very important to have a way of quickly and easily changing the information that is stored inside them. SQL is the standard for the ANSI which means interoperability may be possible if the language to talk between databases as the basic level is the same, maybe one day they will become better at communicating at higher levels too.

Sources:

http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_intro.asp
http://www.sqlcourse.com/intro.html

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