What is SQL?

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a language used to store, manipulate, and query data in relational databases. It is a tool used by data professionals to handle structured data. Structured data is handled with this program by data professionals. There are several Relational Database Management Systems (RDMS) that use SQL as their standard database language, including MySQL, MS Access, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Postgres and SQL Server.

 

Why SQL?

Today, people use data to find insights that inform strategy, marketing, operations, and several other categories. Almost all businesses use large, relational databases, which makes a basic understanding of SQL an indispensable skill not just for data scientists, but for almost everyone. The use of SQL in data science and analytics is widespread. Here is the reason why-

  • SQL allows users to insert, update, and delete the data from the relational database.
  • SQL allows users to access data in relational database management systems.
  • SQL is used for inserting, updating, deleting, and retrieving data records in the database.
  • Allows users to describe the structured data.
  • It allows SQL users to create and drop databases and tables.
  • It also helps to create views, stored procedures, and functions in a database.
  • It allows users to define the data in a database and manipulate that data.
  • It also allows SQL users to set permissions on tables, procedures and views.

 

Features of SQL

Features of SQL that make it unique when it comes to managing relational databases.

  • The language SQL is simple and easy to learn.
  • A large amount of data can be retrieved very efficiently using SQL.
  • The SQL programming language can be used with virtually any database system, including Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, etc.
  • The structure of SQL is well-defined since it is based on long-established standards.
  • With SQL, we can manage databases without knowing a lot of coding.

 

History of SQL

It was designed by an IBM research centre in 1974 and 1975 under the name SEQUEL (structured English query language). Relational Software, which later became Oracle, introduced the first commercial SQL database system in 1979.

Before SQL, databases used tight navigational programming interfaces and were typically based on a network schema called the CODASYL data model. The CODASYL (Committee on Data Systems Languages) was a consortium that developed the COBOL programming language (in 1959) and database language extensions (ten years later).

 

Why should we choose SQL as our career?

There are endless reasons why you choose SQL as your Career

  • Combine data from multiple resources: Usually, integrating data from multiple sources requires a lot of work, but with SQL, you can combine specific fields or merge the entire database.
  • Free: Since SQL is open-source, you don’t have to pay for any tools or software to practice it. As far as learning is concerned, you only have to pay for the initial SQL certification fees; subsequently, you won’t have to purchase any tools or software.
  • Integration: You can use SQL queries with other programming languages such as PHP or Java depending on your requirements.
  • Manage bulk of data: The conventional database software cannot handle a large collection of data in this case. SQL acts as a blessing in this case. Whether there are a thousand records or a million, SQL is fully capable of handling a huge amount of data of any kind.
  • Simple: One can easily learn the basics of SQL within a week or two when compared to other programming languages.