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Databases

Elizabeth Hicks
Elizabeth Hicks
44,877 Points
Posted by Elizabeth Hicks
Elizabeth Hicks
44,877 Points

Reporting with SQL - Counting Groups challenge task #2 - not obvious from video

I've been working with SQL for over 15 years and this challenge stumped me. If this is meant to be learned as a beginner it needs to be explained in the video. I spent a long time trying to figure it out and re-watching the video before I noticed the answer was on the cheat sheet.

So far this is the only thing out of the Beginner SQL track I didn't know. And it most definitely should be mentioned in the videos. If I was stumped by this a beginner to SQL is most definitely going to struggle with this unless they are aware of the cheat sheet and using that.

Also the concatenation questions only allowed || as the operator and not the CONCAT function that those of us in MySQL world use. Those challenges should either specify the database being used for the challenge or allow the other concatenation operator/functions. After CONCAT didn't work I had tried + and only after looking back at the notes on the video before the challenge did I see the || operator.

Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points
Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points

Did you watch the tutorials? The one i saw on concat only dealt with ||, and the course i'm working on has practice using their sql playground as a regular activity. (i think they said it's SQLite under the hood).

Elizabeth Hicks
Elizabeth Hicks
44,877 Points
Elizabeth Hicks
Elizabeth Hicks
44,877 Points

Oh did they say it uses SQLite? I missed that. I never had reason to use the SQL playground. I did watch all the videos.

Well there are some students that already know a lot of this stuff like myself but are self taught and go through these courses to fill in any gaps in knowledge. So I think it shouldn't be assumed that someone knows something when they are on any of the challenges. I think any details a person needs to answer the challenge should be provided in the challenge.

Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points
Simon Coates
Simon Coates
28,694 Points

https://teamtreehouse.com/library/reporting-with-sql/working-with-text/what-are-functions : 2:51: "SQL playground runs a version of SQLite under the hood. What works in SQLite might not work the same in MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQL server.". So the practice stuff is SQLite, and i think a lot of the videos favor the SQLite techniques. I'd be happier if it used mysql, but maybe creating an arbitrary number of SQLite databases on the fly is easier.

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,128 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,128 Points

Remember that the challenges use SQLite.

As Simon mentioned, there are variations in features and syntax across different types of databases. This is one of those cases where you have to do things the "SQLite" way to pass the challenge.