The Home Stretch

Well, here we are. Only two sections left after this. I'm going to take the unit quiz tonight (at the last minute) to see how I've done. This week was a lot of MySQL query "stuff". I'm not sure if the concepts themselves are any more difficult than anything else we've learned and would say that last week's data modeling section was far more tricky but those lessons were crucial to understanding how SQL language works in a practical sense and why we build tables the way we do.

We were introduced to a new way of interacting with MySQL via phpMyAdmin and I found the tool quite useful and intuitive. It even shows you the code you created while filling in the tables verifying you inputting the correct info. A co-worker recommended MySQL Administrator but I think for now I'll stick with either Webmin, phpMySQL, or the command line based MySQL Monitor.

The most difficult time I had this week was working with joins and getting the syntax correct. I was particularly challenged when trying to tie three tables together becuase if the phrases were not constructed (as with any query) I would get error message saying things like "collection_id is vague in clause...." Left and Right joins were also tough and didn't seem to produce correct results if I tried to tie more than two tables together. But I gave it a shot. I haven't looked at what is in store for next week but I hope it builds on this week's and last week's lessons, reinforcing what we are learning