One of the best skills you can teach yourself to get ahead in your career is SQL. In a world so driven by data, being able to pull your own data is very empowering. It’s also a way to get ahead. People who can pull their own data are less reliant on others.
At Rover.com, we’re teaching all of our people, from customer service to marketing to the CEO, how to run their own SQL queries. We have a read-only version of our database, so that anybody in the company can pull their own data and run their own reports.
How can you learn SQL?
It turns out that SQL is more mysterious and scary than difficult. The basics are really very simple, and you’ll pick up 80% of it in a few hours. It’s like music: there’s only 14 notes in a scale…the magic comes in how you put them together.
A quick search for “SQL tutorial” or “learn SQL online” will yield plenty of results. Here’s a few that I found:
As background, SQL stands for “structured query language”…it’s the language used to get data out of database server or RDBMS, i.e. “relational database management system”.
There are many database servers, but the most common are:
- Microsoft SQL Server — runs on Windows
- Oracle — mucho $$$$
- MySQL — open source
- SQLite — open source and super light weight
You may need to install a DB in order to learn from the tutorials.
SQLite is insanely simple and easy to use. It’s just a text file that gets treated like a database. I don’t even think there is a server to install, just a client. The client I personally use is RazorSQL.
If for some reason SQLite isn’t robust enough for the tutorial you’re working on, then you’ll want to get MySQL. It’s free. For that, you’ll need to install the database server (MySQL) and a client tool (called MySQL Workbench). A lot of companies use MySQL (including Rover).
SQLite is used a lot too, but mostly by developers who embed it within an application. That being said, from a “learning SQL” perspective, you’ll learn the same with each of them.
If you’re learning, don’t bother with MS SQL Server or Oracle. They’re overly complicated for your initial needs. If you know how to query SQLite or MySQL then jumping over and learning how to query those databases is easy. Conceptually, they are the same, though there are semantic differences, but nothing that you wouldn’t figure out quickly. For example, in MySQL you get the current time by typing “Now()” and in SQL Server it’s “GetDate()”.
Most importantly, have fun! Remember, you’re only a beginner, so it’s going to be difficult at first. But, with lots of searches, you can usually get all your questions answered!
