Introduction to SQL

Course Overview
Hi everyone. My name is Jon Flanders and welcome to my course, Introduction to SQL. I'm a developer with over 20 years of experience using relational databases and despite the fact that topics like big data and NoSQL databases get all the press these days, the vast majority of applications that use data which by the way, are the vast majority of applications, are backed by a good old-fashioned relational database system that is programmed using Structured Query Language also known as SQL. This course will provide you with the basics that you need to know to get started using SQL. No prior SQL experience is required. Some of the major topics that we will cover include querying data using the select statement, shaping your results using the where clause, creating and modifying data in your tables as well as creating and modifying those tables themselves. By the end of this course, you'll know the basics of how to create and use a relational database. Before beginning the course, you really only need to be familiar with the basic concepts of computer programming. I hope you'll join me here at Pluralsight to learn SQL with the Introduction to SQL course.

Shaping Results with ORDER BY and GROUP BY
Hi, this is Jon Flanders with Pluralsight. In this module, I'm going to be talking about shaping your results using the ORDER BY or GROUP BY clause. Up to now in the course, we've been looking at result sets that are in the order that the database stores them. That is whatever the database has in terms of row order, our result set is in that same row order. That's just using a simple SELECT statement, select from and even with the WHERE clause, you're reducing the result set, but you're not ordering it. What we want to talk about in this module is the main ways that we can order that result set.

Matching Different Data Tables with JOINs
Hi, this is Jon Flanders with Pluralsight. In this module, I'm going to talk about matching different data tables with JOINs. So the JOIN clause, the JOIN keyword is a new keyword that we're going to start talking about. It merges multiple tables into one result set. The FROM clause is going to have to include all the tables that we want to JOIN. We're going to separate each table with a comma. Typically, we're going to have a WHERE clause. Most of the time, we don't want to just JOIN the data whole from one table to another. Again, usually we're using these types of clauses in more sophisticated query scenarios. Now in the WHERE clause, we can restrict the result set from each different table. We can put in Boolean expressions that return true or false and those expressions can reference columns from all the tables. Now there are different kinds of JOINs so we're going to talk about each one in turn.

Adding, Changing, and Removing Data
Hi, this is Jon Flanders with Pluralsight. In this module, I'm going to talk about adding, changing, and removing data using SQL. In this course so far, all we've done is query data. Querying data is, of course, one of the main functions of SQL. But SQL is used for other things other than querying. It can be used for adding and modifying data as well. So the command we've been talking about in earlier modules of this course, is the select command. This is the read part of the CRUD acronym. But there's also insert, that is the create part of the CRUD acronym. Update, and delete. Now, why do people call it CRUD and not... Whatever word SUID would be, or ISUD? I don't know, I think people just came up with something that actually matched the semantics of what these commands do, not the exact command names or first letters. So CRUD stands for create, read, update and delete. That corresponds to insert, select, update and delete. No real easy way to remember that, other than trying to remember the mappings.

Creating Database Tables
Hi this is Jon Flanders with Pluralsight. In this module I'm going to talk about creating databases and database tables. So data definition language or DDL as it's known for short is a subset of the sequel standard for creating databases and tables, and all the accompanying things, right, columns, foreign keys, and all sorts of other database constructs. Now most database tools, most database products have a visual tool, and some of them have more than one visual tool that allows you to do this visually, right, using a point and click rather typing in commands. I think it's still a good idea to have an idea of what these commands are doing, and at the end you may end up scripting from those visual commands that you've executed a set of DDL files or a DDL file that you can use to recreate your database in another context or environment or as a backup for example.