What's the best online resource for learning SQL? In the line of work I want to go down it seems extremely important based on job adverts I've seen, as does VBA. I'm completely unfamiliar with programming though, and can't tell a good site from a bad one.
>>5839 >as does VBA
You have no hope. You've made some bad assumptions and consequently asked the wrong question. IT isn't for you. You may think I'm joking or being an arse and I'm sure someone will come along to second that view shortly, but seriously mate, this thread is a big red flag that you're going to suck at programming. It's a trade where you have to answer obvious questions yourself, not run crying to others.
Depends how much detail you want to learn. SQL is not particularly difficult to learn the basics - I picked up how to create databases and tables, populate these with data and execute simple queries pretty quickly. Though there are many more complexities I don't know, it's mostly a case of just looking up the syntax.
>>5840 I have to second this. Unless you're halfway through a uni education and the programming really is incidental to the sort of work you're looking to do, you don't sound particularly promising. Especially given you're looking at SQL, which even competent developers have a nasty habit of fucking up spectacularly by considering it to be an afterthought to whatever primary language they're working in thinking they can simply guess the operations they need and just look up the syntax for it without really understanding what they're doing. (Classic example: Someone knows vaguely how to insert a row, and how to update a row, and tries to merge in some rows by looping through them, checking if they exist already, and inserting/updating the row as appropriate. This is a really bad way to do this, and any sensible database system will support doing this in one operation without the loop.)
All that said, if you really want to do this, then at least do yourself a favour and remind yourself of set theory and brush up on relational algebra first. Working with databases is not merely "table-oriented programming".
Be fair, someone has to do all those dismal VBA jobs for awful companies. How else are Wernam Hogg going to produce endless reams of meaningless reports and cock up their payroll every month?
OP, get yourself some CompTIA certifications. Nobody in IT has even the slightest bit of respect for them, but idiotic managers seem to like them.
>>5845 >Be fair, someone has to do all those dismal VBA jobs for awful companies.
The fewer people who can do it, the more money they'll have to pay, making those jobs rather less dismal.
>>5839 > What's the best online resource for learning SQL? In the line of work I want to go down it seems extremely important based on job adverts I've seen, as does VBA.
I am struggling to think of a job, or even a profession / role, that would require knowledge of both SQL and VBA. "Maintainer of MS Access databases embedded in MS Excel spreadsheets" ?
Playing Devil's advocate here, mainly because I've been thinking of how to reply to this thread all day and failing, but...
> It's a trade where you have to answer obvious questions yourself, not run crying to others.
The very existence and the overwhelming popularity of stackoverflow.com utterly refutes that statement.
> All that said, if you really want to do this, then at least do yourself a favour and remind yourself of set theory and brush up on relational algebra first. Working with databases is not merely "table-oriented programming".
>>5849 I had StackOverflow in mind when I wrote my post. If he had asked this question there it would have been locked. StackOverflow is overflowing (Ha! Did you spot that?) with junk questions from people who can't speak English or code FizzBuzz. It's also a brilliant resource built by proper experts who'll tackle genuinely hard questions. I wasn't suggesting that programming is always a lone-wolf exercise or that the inexperienced ought not to approach the elders for advice. I was saying that to be a good programmer you have to be good with Google and must learn independently and this thread suggests OP is lacking there. If you think programmers who spend more time asking questions on SO than in their editors are worthy of the name, then sure, consider my statement refuted.
Alternatively, we're all ravaging an innocent sheep who dared ask if he could play in our field. We all ask bad questions sometimes.
I've never read this, but I'm reasonably sure it details the essence of what I'm saying.
>I am struggling to think of a job, or even a profession / role, that would require knowledge of both SQL and VBA. "Maintainer of MS Access databases embedded in MS Excel spreadsheets" ?
Search for VBA on any of the big job sites. A huge proportion of people who write code for a living are just shovelling poorly-structured data between databases and spreadsheets. These people usually have the word "analyst" in their job title.
They're not quite programmers, not quite managers, not quite accountants. Nobody is entirely sure what they do other than writing impressive-looking reports that nobody really reads, but they are apparently vital to the functioning of any large company. They drive Audis, they work on business parks, they wear suits that are slightly too shiny, they perform aberrant sexual acts in Travelodges.
> I had StackOverflow in mind when I wrote my post. If he had asked this question there it would have been locked.
Absolutely agree.
> I wasn't suggesting that programming is always a lone-wolf exercise or that the inexperienced ought not to approach the elders for advice. I was saying that to be a good programmer you have to be good with Google and must learn independently and this thread suggests OP is lacking there.
Again, I have to agree with you. The fact he's asking a general-purpose image board for advice on where to look for information on a specific topic shows.... well let's just say a lack of awareness. You'd expect someone to at least work out how to find the PDFs of a few well-selling books on each subject and start from there.
> If you think programmers who spend more time asking questions on SO than in their editors are worthy of the name, then sure, consider my statement refuted.
Absolutely not, but I probably use it several times a week and I think most of my peers do too. It's almost like the man page of annoying errors, syntax, and parameters or something.
I refuse to read anything written by ESR on general principles, so like you I'll agree with you/it without having read it. Fair's fair.
>>5849 >Jesus wept.
I beg your pardon? Are you suggesting that database work is just "table-oriented programming"? I've seen what happens when people approach it as "table-oriented programming". It's not pretty, which might be forgivable if it still worked.
>>5857 The OP made no attempt to contextualise the question, so we must assume it stands by itself. They've also made no attempt to tell us what they've done to answer it, so we must assume they've done nothing. These are pretty sound assumptions, given that in decades of people asking questions online they've held true far more often than not.
>>5859 Did you also make no attempt to do prior research and contextualise your question so as not to exhibit the "XY problem"? Because those things definitely correlate very strongly with unhelpful and obstructive answers.
