What I learned from SQL

I've been trying to learn how to use the programming tool SQL. I first tried to install PostgreSQL but from installing it the options looked confusing, but I went ahead anyway.

But when I tried to use the shell I was stuck on even starting to create a table. First, I thought could PowerShell as I saw in the tutorial. and just type SQL to access to the SQL shell. But I quickly found out it did not work. I wasn't sure about how to access the shell or use the program. so I downloaded another PostgreSQL program from another provider but I still had the same issue. So I switched tutorials.

With the new tutorial, I was viewing it used a MySQL program for the tasks. So I went on to install the program. The person in the video did a good job explaining the options of the installation so I had a better understand what to do compared to the PostgreSQL programs. After installed the program opened up the shell I thought I was supposed to use. But I quickly found out it was a different shell with extra features. as did look slightly different from the tutorial. I found the shell I was supposed to use and entered my first SQL line of code. All this fiddling around with these programs took around a day so needless to say I was pretty happy after using a working edition.

Now the tutorial prompted me to install another program to use SQL by. As the shell lacks visuals making learning more difficult. The program I installed was popSQL a minimalist style text editor for SQL which has some cool features like google docs style collaborations on files. but as I'm not using SQL for anyone else right now. I wouldn't be using that feature.

Now the tutorial starts with us making an example table to use. The table was a simple student, major and name. After clearing the commands to make the table. We moved on the other basic commands of manipulating the table. From my first experience of the SQL language is that is very simple once you know the main keywords like SELECT or WHERE or FROM. As normally use pandas manipulating data like this can be a bit longer compared to SQL.

But the SQL language was designed from the ground up to interact with databases and deal with manipulating data in general. As the SQL is not a fully fledged out programming language like python or javascript. As it lacks loops and control flows which the other languages have. To be honest I can't imagine a person creating a program from scratch as it lacks these features. But like mentioned earlier SQL was designed to mainly interface databases. so the language really just has one main goal. The languages which I mentioned earlier tend to be general purpose so you can use them for a whole variety of tasks. From AI to web development these languages cover the whole breadth of activities and tasks they can do.