SQL


SQL Structured query language, mainly used in databse design to gather important data out of a database as well as to put it inside to store it.

Resources used for learning SQL include;
  • hackerrank, great website for writing SQL as well as other programming languages and trying to complete them.
  • W3Schools - great website which covers alot of programming languages and their syntax
  • Database Processing - great book, which talks about SQL, different commands and more within the book and perfect for revision 
  • Sololearn - Great site/application to learn SQL to learn the syntax and how to do different commands
  • Tutorials - your tutor should provide you with material you can use to learn SQL which hopefully will come in handy for you to try, the one's I was given to try in tutorial and by myself were quite helpful
  • Datawarehouse  this youtube video is useful if learning about database warehouses as it introduces you to the star schema and with it being related to databases, you'll most likely be taught about datawarehouses.
  • Joey blue - great youtube video's to learn about SQL and using MS SQL server
  • Syntax checker - one good site to check the syntax of your sql query to ensure it will run when trying to execute it.
  • channel5567 - good youtube video explaining database normalisation so you know how to make it be in 1,2,3 and 4nf.
  • studytonight - very helpful youtube channel to help understand database normalization
  • Caleb curry - youtuber who covers many programming languages and for SQL he talks about different dependencies e.g. functional, composite, transitive

To actually create a database and do SQL commands or create diagrams I found these software quite useful:
  • MS (Microsoft) Access, although keep in  mind that some SQL commands like joins can not be run on this or running multiple commands
  • MS (Microsoft) Excel, mainly to create your data in and then to create diagrams or from a database application to export your data to, so you can create charts etc.
  • SQLiteStudio - free software you can use to create a database, but some commands or operations like a stored proc can not be done, so if you do download this keep that in mind or use different application.
  • Xampp - although this would be more for using it along side something, you can still use this to try out or experiment SQL commands to see what they do and keep in mind that it uses MySQL syntax
  • Oracle workbench - Some people I know have used this to create database's as for me I could not download the software but to create a database and run queries it's quite good, although some commands you can't run and the syntax is a bit different as I believe it uses MySQL.
  • Tableau - this is software which you would use to basically export data from the database so you can create useful dashboards and charts for people to understand as well as to make the data more clean so it's easy to read.
  • Microsoft SQL server - One powerful piece of software to create databases and have a server to run it from, this may fight with Xampp if you have it on your pc/mac so keep that in mind but for me they work fine. I highly recommend this because you can run all sorts of sql commands as wel as run built in scripts to perform a action like making  a user. There's also videos online on how to install the software so you won't be stuck on how to install the software plus its completly free.
In terms of support for SQL you can always try to use sololearn, stackoverflow and reddit but most of the time I don't think you'll have to ask them for any help unless your making a very complicated query or if you have software issues with the application or server😅. Although you can still get your tutor to check your sql code to make sure it works as well as going over your own code to make sure you understand what you are trying to do.

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