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I will add that the next step beyond this is relational/referential thinking. The idea that you can have all the low-level events or transactions in your system

by btown 5y ago

I will add that the next step beyond this is relational/referential thinking. The idea that you can have all the low-level events or transactions in your system, bring in (join/lookup) data from their parent entities without duplicating data entry, and then aggregate in different ways… whether you use Excel with VLOOKUP or Airtable or SQL, you can design user products and analytics projects. Airtable in particular is an amazing no-code way to experiment with database design and wrangle a data entry project in a way that can easily be imported into a relational database in a highly normalized way. If you know these things and are curious about the world, it’s a quick path to being able to lead a technical project. Add a skill like design or domain knowledge and to the right team you’re suddenly a unicorn even if you’ve never officially typed a line of Python or JS.

PebblesRox 5y ago
I'm really thankful to my dad (a database analyst) for sitting me down one time when I was home on break from college to give me a basic overview of how relational databases work. I eventually did more reading on my own, but just knowing about this general concept made it so I could see when I had a situation where it would be useful. My first job was in an architect's office and I had a project that involved tracking details of a hundred different doors and windows of a historic building, so I used Access to create a database and saved so much time keeping track of everything! In my current position as the combined accounting/HR department of a small company, I've been able to build a lot of tools using Airtable that help us track deals and commissions in a less-manual way, allowing us to scale the team a lot faster than we would have been able to otherwise. Pipedream is another great tool because it has very granular coverage of the whole spectrum from no-code to real-code. At every step of the learning journey, there's an opportunity to get a little more sophisticated, but the whole time I'm also able to be productive in solving the business problems in front of me. As someone who aspires to become a developer someday, it's really cool to be submitting PRs as part of my not-officially-technical day job :) https://pipedream.com/ https://pipedream.com/
- tartoran 5y ago
  Likewise I am forever grateful to my dad for the same thing. He had me learn relational dbs and SQL 20+ years ago and am still benefittinng greatly from that. Unfortunately, beside SQL almost everything has seen drastic changes since then.

by btown 5y ago

PebblesRox 5y ago

I'm really thankful to my dad (a database analyst) for sitting me down one time when I was home on break from college to give me a basic overview of how relational databases work. I eventually did more reading on my own, but just knowing about this general concept made it so I could see when I had a situation where it would be useful. My first job was in an architect's office and I had a project that involved tracking details of a hundred different doors and windows of a historic building, so I used Access to create a database and saved so much time keeping track of everything! In my current position as the combined accounting/HR department of a small company, I've been able to build a lot of tools using Airtable that help us track deals and commissions in a less-manual way, allowing us to scale the team a lot faster than we would have been able to otherwise. Pipedream is another great tool because it has very granular coverage of the whole spectrum from no-code to real-code. At every step of the learning journey, there's an opportunity to get a little more sophisticated, but the whole time I'm also able to be productive in solving the business problems in front of me. As someone who aspires to become a developer someday, it's really cool to be submitting PRs as part of my not-officially-technical day job :) https://pipedream.com/ https://pipedream.com/

tartoran 5y ago
Likewise I am forever grateful to my dad for the same thing. He had me learn relational dbs and SQL 20+ years ago and am still benefittinng greatly from that. Unfortunately, beside SQL almost everything has seen drastic changes since then.