CSUMB Learning Journal

Just stopping by for my weekly journal for CST363. I don’t have anything to say except that I’m glad there were no Java based assignments this week. I just hate Java. On to the question of the week! The web site "Use the Index Luke" has a page on "slow indexes". https://use-the-index-luke.com/sql/anatomy/slow-indexesLinks to an external site. If indexes are supposed to speed up performance of query, what does the author mean by a slow index What Markus Winand is trying to convey on that page is that slow indexes are situations when an index can be slower than a normal query. He explains how indexing works then says that slow indexes are a myth stemming from the misunderstanding that slow indexes can be caused by improper tree structure. Apparently most databases can tell you how they use an index and using that insight can help developers optimize how they index their databases.

Half way already? Here we are at the end of Week 4. I can say that I’ve learned a lot about SQL databases. I learned about normalization, queries, views, database structures, and the intricacies of different algorithms that drive databases. There’s a lot of content to absorb in this class. I’m still curious about how other databases look and compare to SQL, what kind of metrics exist for real-life examples of large databases such as their performance costs compared to size and how they are structured to adhere to strict security standards. I’d also like to learn more about what kind of databases are most useful for different situations and how to optimize them for their use cases. It looks like next week has a group assignment. Scary.

 Wow week 3 already? I'm glad that there wasn't any homework work this week, but I guess the exam made up for that absence. One thing that confused me a little on the exam was a question about the university database calling for data from the year 2023, but the database only goes up to like 2010. I guess it wasn't supposed to actually query data for the answer, but I got curious and thought maybe that data was in courses-large.sql instead of courses-small.sql. I was never able to find that out though because it was taking an astronomical amount of time to insert the tables for courses-large and I had to force quit out of MySQL Workbench because it was frozen for too long. Not sure what to make up that since my computer specs are exceptional. I guess it was trying to load everything on one thread and if I waited maybe 20+ minutes it would've completed. Anyways that doesn't matter. On to the questions! 1. Someone described normalization rule as "a non-key column ...

Week 2 of learning about Database Systems. I like this subject. On to the questions… 1. SQL has the flexibility to join tables on any column(s) using any predicate (=, >, < ). Most of the time the join will use equality between a primary and foreign key. Think of an example where joining on something other than keys would be needed. Write the query both as an English sentence and in SQL. If you can't think of your own example, search the textbook or internet for an example. If you need to join two tables and don’t have an available key to do so you can always use something else like a name column that is the same between the two tables, for example: SELECT employees.*, departments.* FROM employees JOIN departments ON employees.department_name = departments.name 2. What is your opinion of SQL as a language? Do you think it is easy to learn and use? When translating from an English question to SQL, what kinds of questions do you find most challenging? I like SQL. It'...

Week 1 of Intro to Database Systems. I don’t have anything to say but there are some questions I have to answer. 1. Relational database tables and spreadsheets look similar with both having rows and columns. What are some important differences between the two? Relational database tables and spreadsheets only look similar. There is a lot going on behind the scenes for databases that make them what they are, including the structure, integrity, scalability, and security of data stored in a database. Spreadsheets lack almost all of the features that databases have at the cost of flexibility for users to input data without complex rules. 2. Installing and configuring a database and learning how to use it is more complicated that just reading and writing data to a file. What are some important reasons that make a database a useful investment of time? The reasons for investing in a database are similar to what makes them better than just using spreadsheets. Databases allow for concurrent a...