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That's interesting. I didn't learn SQL until taking a course on it in grad school. I had some programming background, mainly from math classes and a bit of CS

by geebee 10y ago

That's interesting. I didn't learn SQL until taking a course on it in grad school. I had some programming background, mainly from math classes and a bit of CS. the concept of a query really seemed odd, it took some mental adjusting. My only programming background was largely in writing procedural code. My brain really wanted to think in terms of methods, functions, inputs, and return values. It's been so long (18 years since that course), that it is difficult to remember the mindset I was in. It all seems pretty natural now. But you are absolutely right, you do need to start thinking in terms of sets and operations on sets, not in terms of methods with inputs, procedures, and return values

danso 10y ago
I was in a similar boat. I studied computer engineering in school but didn't take any database course. My first encounter with SQL was years later as an education reporter. Someone in the newsroom threw out a "Access 97 for Dummies" and I picked it up and realized it was just what I needed to do the kind of analysis I wanted on California schools and test scores (CA.gov is quite good about posting raw data [0]) I eventually moved from Access to MySQL/SQLite, but if it weren't for Access's interactive query designer, where the tables are presented as lists of columns and you draw/drag lines to declare a JOIN between columns [1], I honestly don't think I would have ever grokked SQL. I actually think that without SQL, I would have never understood the power and purpose of a JOIN, even though that concept of comparing lists is the foundation of most investigative research. So I justify forcing SQL on to journalism students not merely because it's a useful skill, but because it presents the best vocabulary and grammar for describing the idea of joins. Also, SQL's general lack of data-munging functions or conveniences really drives home that data is just characters and numbers, and doesn't magically have meaning or come into existence. That is an extremely difficult concept to convey with Excel -- e.g. how it automagically converts `9-11` into `11-Sep` and confers a datetime context onto what was just plaintext. [0] http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/dd/ http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/dd/ [1] http://www.opengatesw.net/ms-access-tutorials/Access-Articles/Microsoft-Access-Query.htm http://www.opengatesw.net/ms-access-tutorials/Access-Article...

by geebee 10y ago

danso 10y ago

I was in a similar boat. I studied computer engineering in school but didn't take any database course. My first encounter with SQL was years later as an education reporter. Someone in the newsroom threw out a "Access 97 for Dummies" and I picked it up and realized it was just what I needed to do the kind of analysis I wanted on California schools and test scores (CA.gov is quite good about posting raw data [0]) I eventually moved from Access to MySQL/SQLite, but if it weren't for Access's interactive query designer, where the tables are presented as lists of columns and you draw/drag lines to declare a JOIN between columns [1], I honestly don't think I would have ever grokked SQL. I actually think that without SQL, I would have never understood the power and purpose of a JOIN, even though that concept of comparing lists is the foundation of most investigative research. So I justify forcing SQL on to journalism students not merely because it's a useful skill, but because it presents the best vocabulary and grammar for describing the idea of joins. Also, SQL's general lack of data-munging functions or conveniences really drives home that data is just characters and numbers, and doesn't magically have meaning or come into existence. That is an extremely difficult concept to convey with Excel -- e.g. how it automagically converts `9-11` into `11-Sep` and confers a datetime context onto what was just plaintext. [0] http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/dd/ http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/dd/ [1] http://www.opengatesw.net/ms-access-tutorials/Access-Articles/Microsoft-Access-Query.htm http://www.opengatesw.net/ms-access-tutorials/Access-Article...