[* that wise man was me.]
So now that I’ve established my credentials by bamboozling you with arcane words and capital letters, let me tell you what the purpose of this series of articles is. By the end of it, you will be able to re-read that first paragraph and understand every word; or, if you would prefer that in more practical terms, you will be able to read – and write – SQL, which is the programming language of databases.
Definitions
Let’s meet the main characters of our story: I’ll give you a couple of definitions; one building on the other.
A Database is an organised collection of data. Not yet sure what that means? Well, do you own an address book, either on your phone or in a physical book? That’s a database. After all, the addresses and phone numbers areorganised – with all friends whose names start with A being grouped separately from people whose names start with B or C or D.
A Relational Database is a database in which the data is organised according to type with the relationships being maintained between the differing types. Okay, that sounds a bit like Greek (or Dutch, if you’re Greek; or German, if you’re Dutch; or Xhosa if you’re German…), but it makes sense if you let me explain.
Dig out your address book again. Imagine all the names grouped together; and all the phone numbers grouped together in another list; and all the addresses in a third. On their own these individual lists might be interesting but not useful; but if we establish the relationship between the lists – this address is where that person lives and that’s their phone number – then our database takes shape.
Make sense? Don’t worry about it too much if it doesn’t; we’ll come back to it a little later. Let’s talk about Oracle now.
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