Knowing SQL, especially early in your career, can be beneficial and make you a valuable programmer. You’ve probably already know the basics of SQL and are probably wondering: how do I get to the next level and advance my career? I’ll share some tips that I personally used to improve my SQL programming language skills.
Start with the Basics
If you already have the basics down, then review them again, again and again. It never hurts to be proficient in the basic concepts, especially for SQL.
Some may find it easier to start with online tutorials, while others prefer the old-fashioned learning via textbooks. It doesn’t really matter too much to me because at some point, you have to put your knowledge to practical use. No book or online course is going to do that for you.
To practice, find a sample database to query on. My favorite sample database is the AdventureWorks database by Microsoft. The database is structured exactly like how companies are structured. This is a good database to practice querying on and I highly recommend it.
If you are absolutely new to SQL, start with these statements:
- SELECT
- INSERT
- UPDATE
- DELETE
Then start with the clauses and operators:
- WHERE
- IN
- BETWEEN
And finally, learn how to perform JOINS. JOINS are the heart of SQL and are ABSOLUTELY necessary:
- INNER JOIN
- OUTER JOIN
- LEFT JOIN
- RIGHT JOIN
Make SQL as part of your daily task
To be really good at SQL, like every other skill, you’re going to have to make it as part of your daily routine.
Getting better at SQL doesn’t mean practicing writing queries 24/7. Subscribe to blogs (like this one!) or join LinkedIn/Facebook communities where questions can be shared and answered by professionals. Even when you’re away from your computer, you can read discussions about how others are learning SQL and what techniques/tools they are using to sharpen their SQL skills.
Being proactive in your SQL programming skills, while you may not know it, provides a massive advantage to your professional career.
Provide data by creating reports
Data in a database repository is raw and often very difficult for the average user to decipher. Almost all business decisions are based on data and presenting that data in a readable manner is absolutely crucial.
Learning SQL as a developer is essentially knocking two birds with one stone:
- You need to query data to create reports that are human readable.
- You need to query data that’s digestible by your program.
In real world situations, as a developer, you’ll be required to do some form of automation through your program or create APIs as a way for users to access the company’s data. Learning SQL is so important because you need to know which data the client is asking for and how to query and pass the data to your program.
Optimize your SQL Queries
SQL Query optimization is the process of enhancing the performance of queries through execution time. Perhaps your data reporting is correct but it’s taking the client too long to receive the report. This is where SQL Optimizing becomes very useful.
SQL Optimization not only improves execution time but also throughput. Meaning, the number of rows you fetch should be done in a manner that is most efficient to reduce the amount of resources being used.
Knowing the right tools for SQL Optimizing is important as well. Microsoft SQL Server Management studio has a feature called Execution Plan, where the query is broken down into segments in a visual format like so:
The execution plan outlines which part of the query is the most expensive in terms of CPU usage. This way, you know which parts of the query are bottlenecking your execution time.
Is SQL Programming Language important?
Absolutely. Being able to query data, create reports, create APIs and to optimize these queries are skills that every business needs and skills that will make you a valuable employee for a very long time.
Data is the lifeblood of any business and being able to make sense of raw data (and automate data through developing programs and APIs) is what separates developers from SUCCESSFUL developers. Adding the SQL Programming Language to your toolkit should be one of your top priorities, whether you are an aspiring developer or an experienced one. So get started today!
-Bao