SQL --> How to learn? Books?
I am a recent college graduate and have been searching for a job.
I have noticed that SQL is a very important skill set to have and I need to learn it. What is the best book to use and what software do I need to download?
Keep in mind, I have no experience with SQL but would like to learn the ins and outs. I need to be proficient in it so that I can put it on my resume. What introduction book can I use to get started and then use an intermediate book to make sure I understand SQL? Any help and suggestions is greatly appreciated.
Just buy a book off of Amazon. SQL isn't really the hardest language to learn, it only has 18 commands. The tricky aspects of SQL are joining data from different tables. Just find a basic book off Amazon, download mySQL, and start playing around with small databases (for the record, mySQL lets you forward and reverse engineer any database using a schema, so building databases with SQL isn't really hard at all).
Thanks for the comment. So the software that I need to learn is mySQL? When employers state desired skills on job boards and they post SQL, is this just the language and skill that they want you to learn? Is mySQL the only software I need to download to be proficient?
Pick up the O'reilly books, i've found them the most useful, and just start playing around. There's tons of helpful tutorials on the internet (http://www.w3schools.com/sql/ is one good site).
It's not that tough to get comfortable, focus on working up to more complicated joins and cursors to really achieve proficiency.
If you can get Microsoft SQL great otherwise just use an open source to get familiar.
MS ACCESS (You probably already have it) SQLite (gr8 for learning SQL, lightweight, easy setup, open source) MS SQL(free version available on MS website) MySQL (OP imho if you just want to learn SQL)
Get a beginner SQL book (relational database), hopefully one that includes some database to fool around. I never had to use SQL btw (wasted my time) but if you don might want to learn about OLAP cubes afterwards...
SQL is the language. It passes commands, such as add, delete, or edit, to a database software program, which is more commonly referred to as a database management system, or DBMS.
You can write an SQL command in a file on your computer write now. Open notepad, and type "Select * FROM * ; " Save it as a .sql file, and you have written SQL. However, you will need a DBMS, like mySQL, in order to run the file. It is similar to HTML in that regard. You can write html in notepad, but you need a web browser in order to read the file.
MySQL is an open-source DBMS, free for you to download and use. Microsoft's SQL Server, Oracle 11g, and IBM's DB2 are all DBMS software as well. The difference is that these products are commercially licensed, requiring payment. They are much more sophisticated, allowing for greater scalability. However, they run on the same SQL commands that you will be using.
SQL is good to learn, but it is kind of useless on its own. In a couple of hours you can be building some pretty nice databases. In order to really highlight it as a valuable skill, you will need to do one of three things.
Learn to map out a database schema. A schema is sort of like a map, showing the different tables you have in a database, and the way in which they relate to each other. Learning to do this takes time, since it requires some creative thinkign.
Learn to program. Languages like PHP, Python, etc, all SQL to enter data into a database. For example, this site is built on a PHP/SQL stack. You write in this text box, click submit, and PHP will post the data using a SQL command. This is more difficult to learn, and is probably not what you are looking for, but its an option so I figure'd I'd write it.
Learn data analysis. This is probably what jobs you are looking at consist of. Another user mentioned OLAP software, and that is probably something you will need to learn to use for this type of job. OLAP software looks for recurring patterns in large data sets.
Best of luck.
P.S. If you are a student or still have a student email, Microsoft might have a free version of SQL Server or OLAP software on dreamspark.com
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