CST363.1 Module 1

 

CST363.1 Module 1-Intro to Databases

Differences seen between Spreadsheets and Relational Databases:

There are some similarities between Spreadsheets and Relational Databases in that they both provide a similar row and column structure. However the biggest difference I see is the strength in relationships within databases and how it can form relationships across different tables, with the capability of cascading upon update/deletion. In spreadsheets you can do a similar thing, but it's more involved and you need to generate functions across different sheets/cells, which can get quite messy.

Why are databases a useful investment of time?

I believe highlighting our last courses final project consisted of building an e-commerce application, databases and understanding the relations across tables is essential in most industries. Relational Databases provide the tooling to enable relationships across multiple tables. Using these relationships are a great way of keeping data organized and consistent across the multiple tables needed. In our case for the project, having tables with relationships between tables designated for User, Product, Cart, and Order, were essential in order for the database to be updated across all tables dependent on the user's choices.

What I would like to Learn in the course that will be useful in a future career?
I would like to learn more about establishing relationships across separate tables a bit better, along with querying language. Personally, from having parents who've relatively stayed up to date with technology within their respected industry, they both know the query language designated for the business they work under and see the job security it provided them with, because it can be a complex topic to learn, I find the challenge to learn more about  databases, its structure and organization exciting and something that will be vital to working within the tech industry.