Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll
Preview
Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video
In order to communicate with a database, you've got to speak it's language. SQL is a specialized programming language used for interacting with databases for example, reading information from a database.
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL has been around since the 1970s!
Reading data from a database is known as querying.
Further Reading
SQL Database Websites
NoSQL Database Websites
Now that you have a basic
understanding of what a database is,
0:00
you might be wondering how and more in
depth understanding might be helpful.
0:03
Data and
0:08
the database help you ask important
questions about your business and users.
0:08
Let's imagine you're in marketing.
0:13
As a marketer, you want to see how
different campaigns performed last month.
0:15
Did the spending increase on
search engine marketing
0:21
yield better results than running
an ad on an industry blog?
0:24
Recording information about where users
come from and what they did on your
0:28
site can give you insights about
how to engage with those users.
0:33
What if you're a book editor
at a large publishing company?
0:37
You may want to retrieve your views for
ebooks,
0:41
specifically you might want to see the
books with only a rating of three stars or
0:43
fewer, so you can offer helpful
suggestions to authors.
0:48
Perhaps you're a developer for
a library, you may want to get a list of
0:53
email addresses for patrons with
books due to be returned tomorrow.
0:57
You can use those email addresses
to send those patrons reminders.
1:01
These are just a few different examples.
1:05
There are countless ways to
use data stored in databases.
1:08
To get information out of a database,
1:12
you need a special purpose
programming language called SQL.
1:15
You often hear it pronounced SQL.
1:19
The acronym SQL stands for
Structured Query Language.
1:21
Reading data from a database
is known as querying.
1:26
There are many databases
that understand SQL,
1:30
such as MySQL, PostgreSQL,
MS SQL, Oracle and SQLite.
1:35
Each of these databases can be read or
1:41
queried using the SQL
programming language.
1:44
There are other types of databases
that use more specialized methods,
1:47
such as MongoDB, CouchBase and Redis.
1:52
These are the databases don't fit
into the same family of databases,
1:56
they are known as NoSQL Databases.
2:00
If you land SQL once, you can use
it across all of these databases.
2:04
There are differences in a few areas, but
2:10
the SQL we'll be learning can be
universally used across all of these.
2:12
In this course, we'll be learning the SQL
programming language to write simple
2:17
queries that retrieve
information from a database.
2:21
The ability to use SQL is becoming
an ever more sought after skill.
2:25
We'll use interactive exercises and
quizzes to practice and
2:29
cement what you learn in these videos,
so you can come away with a fundamental
2:32
understanding of both databases and
the SQL language.
2:37
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign up