Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

#33
post #31

I leveled up by helping people on #postgresql (freenode) if I wasn't getting help, myself. I still think highly of the practice.

Is there any certain way for you to do the practice in SQL?

I'm not sure I understand the question. PostgreSQL is a SQL database. You could potentially level up on the support questions posed to any forum but I think #postgresql is one of the best communities around. Momentum doesn't happen overnight.

Re: Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

#34
I just learned the basics in sqlzoo and the rest on job, should be quick. The problem with learning is that students have no idea about real world requirements so they can only go for very generetic ones (average revenue last week). The key, IMO, is to connect with real world business requirements and start writing queries.

I worked as a BA and now work in BI so it's common for me to write long and complex queries. Most of them due to bad table structure but we can't do much so have to go around.

Re: Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

#36
https://pgexercises.com/

Blurb from their homepage:

Welcome to PostgreSQL Exercises! This site was born when I noticed that there's a load of material out there to help people learn about SQL, but not a great deal to make it easy to learn by doing. PGExercises provides a series of questions and explanations built on a single, simple dataset

Re: Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

#37

I just learned the basics in sqlzoo and the rest on job, should be quick. The problem with learning is that students have no idea about real world requirements so they can only go for very generetic ones (average revenue last week). The key, IMO, is to connect with real world business requirements and start writing queries. I worked as a BA and now work in BI so it's common for me to write long and complex queries. M…

This is interesting. Could you elaborate on the real world requirements please? What do you mean?

Re: Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

#39
post #37

I just learned the basics in sqlzoo and the rest on job, should be quick. The problem with learning is that students have no idea about real world requirements so they can only go for very generetic ones (average revenue last week). The key, IMO, is to connect with real world business requirements and start writing queries. I worked as a BA and now work in BI so it's common for me to write long and complex queries. M…

This is interesting. Could you elaborate on the real world requirements please? What do you mean?

In my case the database is designed in a way that analysts have to use many tricks (nested windows functions for example) to get what they need. This technically can be fixed by a re-design of the whole database but in reality it's not practical.

One job that I have never seen a company does well is the transalation of business requirements through programmers and database designers/admins. Each has its own agenda and you need someone who is excel in all three fields to make the connection smooth and lossless. I have yet to find someone who is.

I'd also like to add that if business teams (analysts) stop complaining about database qualities, it doesn't mean you have implemented the right fixes. It usually means that they are so desperate that they decide to just live with them.

Re: Ask HN: Junior SQL developers – How do you learn SQL?

#40
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting. Could you elaborate on the real world requirements please? What do you mean?

In my case the database is designed in a way that analysts have to use many tricks (nested windows functions for example) to get what they need. This technically can be fixed by a re-design of the whole database but in reality it's not practical. One job that I have never seen a company does well is the transalation of business requirements through programmers and database designers/admins. Each has its own agenda an…

Understood. Let's imagine you found such real-world tasks and trying to solve them. You write SQL queries, play around to get dome results but now you need to confirm your solution is right. And given you are playing around on some website that gives you sandbox and interactive SQL tasks — I am not sure there is a way to confirm whether a solution you provided is right or wrong without involving a person (a mentor) to take a look.
Post reply on HN