6 Things SQL Newbies Need to Realize Before Writing A Single Query

One of the biggest mistakes SQL newbies can make is to focus solely on writing and executing queries.

You might think that sounds counter-intuitive. You’ve likely read articles, including some we here at Learning SQL have published, that advise you to spend time laboring over your SQL code to create optimized queries.

You may even be enrolled in a course now, methodically progressing from SELECT * all the way to window functions like DENSE_RANK().

I did the same thing.

I thought that just by learning SQL vocabulary, SQL syntax, that I would figure out how to apply this code to abstract problems.

Even though I completed several introductory SQL courses, I struggled initially, because I focused too heavily on the queries.

I was missing the context.

It’s important to note that as you’re sharpening your SQL skills, you also must increase your data awareness and data literacy or SQL will forever be a mystery, a black box, to you.

Before you move on to your next online course module, finish a textbook chapter or get frustrated in a SQL environment, consider these aspects of the context of your query before hitting ‘run.’

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