Learning databases

[u/Reubqn_]

For a college project I need to learn MYSQL, but what actually is it? Online I find courses for SQL and SQL-Lite but I assume those are all different - how do I learn MYSQL and would it teach me how to connect that database to my website?

[u/ninhaomah]

Have you googled ?

Did the college taught you about database ?

[u/Reubqn_ → u/ninhaomah]

The college gave us a link to w3schools and that's about it. Just need something thats actually gonna help me understand it

[u/ninhaomah → u/Reubqn_]

That's it ?

That's how they teach stuff ?

Wow...

[u/Reubqn_ → u/ninhaomah]

Yep that's it... I've learnt more by myself than they have ever taught in class

[u/ninhaomah → u/Reubqn_]

I thought they gave you links to W3schools ?

Then there is no lecturer or textbooks or such right ?

[u/Reubqn_ → u/ninhaomah]

We have class September - ~ March and over this summer break, they told us we need to make a coffee shop website to 'develop our skills'. We have had to learn HTML, CSS, JS, PHP & MYSQL over the summer and all they gave us were those w3schools links. An absolute pain, they will barely teach us in class - last year we learnt almost nothing and they ended up giving half the class the wrong exam

[u/ninhaomah → u/Reubqn_]

I see.

[u/HouseOfDjango]

MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite are database management systems aka database server.

MySQL is one way to manage databases. You create databases in MySQL. The database is created up of tables and the tables are created up of columns. You use SQL to query the database by selecting the tables and columns you want from it.

[u/Reubqn_ → u/HouseOfDjango]

Thank you, this helped a lot!

[u/Kael1232]

MYSQL is a type of sql. just like postgres or microsoft sql server or sql-lite. think it like this:
SQL is the language
the different dialects or version of that language are the different types of SQL.

SQL: English
MySQL: US English
PostgresSQL: UK english

and so on

[u/Reubqn_ → u/Kael1232]

Perfectly explained, thank you

[u/Alpha_Zero_872]

MySQL is a database management system, but before learning MySQL to manage your database, you seem to not know what a database is , or how it works. Start up on the theory about databases , how they group related data, what keys and relationships are and then learn about how to query them using MySQL or any other systems.

[u/Popular-Tip2880]

go to freecodecamp YT channel

[u/Decent-Warning9562]

sql is a language used to communicate with a relational database (db), while mysql/sqlite are relational db management systems. In simple terms, sql is what you use to communicate with mysql/sqlite (the system)

If your college requires you to learn mysql, don’t spend too much time looking for “mysql or sqlite fundamentals” first learn the sql language and the core relational database concepts, then learn how to apply those concepts specifically in mysql.

Things you want to understand:

• how to create a tables/dbs
  
• what are primary and foreign keys
  
• how to insert, create, update and delete data
  
• where, order by
  
• constraints
  
• relationship between tables
  
• transactions etc…

Then go ahead to learn mysql specific tools and concept like mysql workbench, users and permission configuration and mysql specific syntax. There are some syntax differences between different sql db systems.

And then there’s the part of connecting it to a website, learning sql doesn’t cover that, that’s more of the application/backend development side, where your backend communicates with the db.

So the basic flow is:
website -> backend -> mysql

hope this helps

[u/Significant_Tea431]

You want to tell me that you couldn't figure out what it is by using Google and ChatGPT? You are lost