Hello everybody! Welcome to this course!
My name is Kurt Schuepfer. I work full time as a data scientist, and I will be your instructor for this course. Before we dive into the details about SQL, let's take a moment to talk about how this course is structured and how to maximize your learning!
Structure of the course
The course itself is split into 4 parts.
Part 1 and Part 2 cover basic concepts of the relational model, which is commonly used to represent and manipulate structured data. The relational model is the foundation of Structured Query Language (SQL), the relational database that we will be using in this course. Having a firm grasp of the theoretical concepts behind the relational model is, as you can imagine, absolutely essential in order to efficiently manipulate data in SQL.
Yes, these two parts will be slightly more theoretical. But don't worry, it's not too complicated at all!
Part 3 and Part 4 apply relational model concepts into SQL. These two parts will be more practical.
Finally, you will find optional "Go Further" sections at the end of some chapters. These sections delve deeper into the topic covered in the chapter, present interesting related topics, or offer points for further discussion.
Maximize your learning
We learn by doing. This is why the parts concerning SQL provide opportunities for you to test the queries shown during the course. And even better, you don't need to install anything on your computer! You can test the SQL queries directly, online. It’s quick and easy!
If the interactive console doesn’t work for you, you can install SQLiteStudio on your computer. This is actually the software I’ll be using in the videos for display purposes. You will have the opportunity to download the database later in the course.
What we will be doing
The goal of this course is to learn to manipulate data.
These days, data has a tendency to be less and less structured (due to problems associated with Big Data), and a growing number of non-relational databases are being developed to respond to this shift.
However, the vast majority of databases used today are still relational. Moreover, having a firm grasp of the relational model and its concepts is essential for understanding both databases (whether they are relational or not) and, more broadly, the world of Data Science.
What we will not be doing
This course is not about databases. We will, therefore, be focusing more on data manipulation than on data representation.
SQL is used for multiple purposes, including populating, updating, deleting, and querying databases. In this course, we will focus solely on the querying function.
Furthermore, we will not be digging into the relational model in great depth. We’ll be looking only at what we need in order to analyze data.
