IT retraining Week fourteen: SQL and databases exam
Today, just a brief reflection on last week’s topic "Databases and SQL" in my retraining program.
We learned more new commands and combos (I call them combos), and last week there were only three days of class since Thursday was Reformation Day, and luckily, Friday was a bridge day, giving us a nice long weekend.
This was really needed, as my classmates would surely agree. Wednesday was our exam on the topic, and on the Monday and Tuesday before that, the teacher let us study independently instead of holding regular classes. That was really good of him, as it’s often quite individual what someone feels they need to practice. Those two days were really exhausting. Because I wanted to use the time as effectively as possible to catch up on what I had missed, I utilized that study time intensively. On the morning of the exam, I wasn’t nervous. Although I didn’t feel secure in all topics, I did my best when I was back in shape and had the opportunity.
I already know that I messed up the last three tasks, for which, unfortunately, there were a lot of points. I should have performed a JOIN in each of the three tasks but didn’t realize it was necessary. So I probably still don’t have a good grasp on joins. But now I know that a JOIN must be done when information from multiple tables needs to be retrieved and/or these are connected through primary and foreign keys.
-- Inner Join with wine table
SELECT wine.`name`, wine.`year`, wine.price
FROM wine
JOIN color ON wine.color_id = color.id
JOIN cultivation_area ON wine.cultivation_area_id = land.id
WHERE wine.`year` >= 2000
AND color.`name` = 'red'
AND land.land = 'Italy'
ORDER BY wine.price;
Well, I think I managed the rest of the exam quite well. Now I can only hope that I was able to score a few points on the last three tasks so that the mistakes I made don’t negatively impact my overall result too much.
I found a YouTube channel that has a playlist on SQL and is exactly on my wavelength. I learned a lot from it. The presentation is sci-fi-like and quite funny, in my opinion.
By the way, we are using Xampp with MariaDB and HeidiSQL. HeidiSQL doesn’t look very chic, and it makes me feel like I’m back in the Windows XP era. Is there a more modern, free alternative? Is DBeaver better? Or do we all have to continue using HeidiSQL for some reason that’s required for our classes? We’ll find out soon; class continues on Monday and we’re back to Java.
Music: Reconfig - Shortwire
Mood: lazy