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>Probably my most useful class. Ditto. My teacher was hardcore. He was a graybeard who was around before Codd's now famous paper. He worked with some of the

>Probably my most useful class. Ditto. My teacher was hardcore. He was a graybeard who was around before Codd's now famous paper. He worked with some of the old pre-relational hierarchical databases. We had to take SQL queries, turn them into relational calculus and algebra, turn that into a query plan, then come up with an estimate for the time the query would take to run given various hardware speed numbers and the size of the data. We had to implement our own (primitive!) database engines, including various join algorithms. To date it's one of the hardest, yet most rewarding, learning experiences I've had.

miiiiiike 4y ago
That.. Sounds graduate-level. How's your PhD?
- avidphantasm 4y ago
  That sort of course was very much par for undergrad courses at CMU when I was taking CS classes there 25 years ago. The OS course was very intense. I wasn’t a major and didn’t have time to take it, but my networks course was of similar rigor (i.e., implement a toy TCP/IP stack).
- rjbwork 4y ago
  I took it during summer, and there were some masters and PhD students in there, but I took it as an undergrad course. It was very intense, 3 hours per day, 3 days per week, and 1.5 hours per day the other two.
  - miiiiiike 4y ago
    Man, I got downvoted into oblivion for my comment, but seriously, yeah, graduate level. That sounds fun. My most intense undergrad class series was one where we soldered together a M68HC11 computer and learned assembly one class, built an OS for it the next, and then turned it into a robot with control software running on our OS-es.
- miiiiiike 4y ago
  This was obviously was a joke. Sounds like there's a range in SQL training that goes from "I've heard of SQL" to "I implemented a PostgreSQL compatible db my Sophomore year."
- Izkata 4y ago
  Not necessarily. One of my undergrad courses (~2008) had us implementing a basic inverted index (think Solr or Elasticsearch), which gave me some insight into Solr that my co-workers didn't have that helped with performance issues. If we had a database course that went that in-depth, I'd've definitely taken it, too.
tomrod 4y ago
I would take that today!
- Tostino 4y ago
  Not exactly the same, but check out the CMU database course lectures on YouTube.

miiiiiike 4y ago

That.. Sounds graduate-level. How's your PhD?

avidphantasm 4y ago
That sort of course was very much par for undergrad courses at CMU when I was taking CS classes there 25 years ago. The OS course was very intense. I wasn’t a major and didn’t have time to take it, but my networks course was of similar rigor (i.e., implement a toy TCP/IP stack).
rjbwork 4y ago
I took it during summer, and there were some masters and PhD students in there, but I took it as an undergrad course. It was very intense, 3 hours per day, 3 days per week, and 1.5 hours per day the other two.
- miiiiiike 4y ago
  Man, I got downvoted into oblivion for my comment, but seriously, yeah, graduate level. That sounds fun. My most intense undergrad class series was one where we soldered together a M68HC11 computer and learned assembly one class, built an OS for it the next, and then turned it into a robot with control software running on our OS-es.
miiiiiike 4y ago
This was obviously was a joke. Sounds like there's a range in SQL training that goes from "I've heard of SQL" to "I implemented a PostgreSQL compatible db my Sophomore year."
Izkata 4y ago
Not necessarily. One of my undergrad courses (~2008) had us implementing a basic inverted index (think Solr or Elasticsearch), which gave me some insight into Solr that my co-workers didn't have that helped with performance issues. If we had a database course that went that in-depth, I'd've definitely taken it, too.

tomrod 4y ago

I would take that today!

Tostino 4y ago
Not exactly the same, but check out the CMU database course lectures on YouTube.