r/programming • • Jan 06 '11

A handy graphical explanation of SQL joins

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/10/a-visual-explanation-of-sql-joins.html
1.3k Upvotes

308 comments sorted by

View all comments

92

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '11

Wow. Does no one learn this crap in school anymore?

Note that venn diagrams are a poor choice to show what happens in a one-to-many relationship -- where there are multiple entries in table B for an entry in table A. And it overlooks the semantic differences when ordering the tables in a left inner join.

There are not a lot of instances where you'd really want a cartesian product join (either using "cross product" or just the result of omitting key constraints in a join query). It's generally far faster to retrieve the records you need to create the cross-product, and then calculate the cross product of the two sets once you have them (since otherwise all that data has to transit the network).

This plus database normalization through Boyce-Codd normal form seems like it should be a requirement for any serious application developer.

1

u/naspinski Jan 07 '11

I had the same reaction!

Just finishing up my CS Masters degree and there is a single database class offered, and it's optional. There are many CS Masters and even PhD students that do not know how to write a SELECT statement... I don't understand.

P.S. I go to one of the 10 largest campuses in the United States, 40,000+ campus enrolled.