Thomas Sisson -Blog Post #5

SQL – What is it and why is it important?

          SQL – or Structured Query Language – is a very basic way to interact with elements in a database. It uses various standard commands such as Create, Insert, Delete, etc. to accomplish everything necessary to create and maintain a database. Many database programs use these standard commands, while some also add their own proprietary commands to the list. The basic nature of SQL is to provide a simple and easy to understand way to access database elements in order to limit the necessary skill to run the database. Before SQL, the interaction with a database was much more brute force, with what was called a Codasyl database. Let me preface this by saying that my experience with databases is very limited, and much of the inner workings of SQL and Codasyl are pretty foreign to me. How I understood it, however, is that with a Codasyl database, you needed to access each individual field that you wanted in order to extract that data that was needed. This becomes incredibly complex when there are many fields within the database, with the referenced article using a student list for a college course as an example. In this example, there was a “Courses” set, an “Enrollees” set, then list the student record from this set, and run a loop command to print out this list until there were no more names. If this means that it was simple loops and programming commands, then I can see the appeal of such a method, but I can also see how the difficulty of the method would limit the willing database operators. SQL appears to be much more relation based, and a single command could be used to achieve all of the individual steps listed above. This is incredibly important for when an industry needs quick and easy ways of pulling data from a database, since it limits working hours spent and improves productivity. The gap in difficulty between the two methods just becomes larger when more complexity and volume is added to the database. Instead of running individual commands to narrow down a search to one out of a hundred sets and then sorting it by whatever property, a database operator could just use a single SQL query using a couple commands and its done.

          SQL is important to us because it gives us a way to use the data that a building may generate for us. For construction, a database could contain different materials needed to complete a certain section of a building, during a certain phase, and order them by cost, date to be installed, or whatever needed. This data could either be used in a report, or could be then transferred to a program which could read it and automatically determine any inefficiencies, or begin ordering the materials, or even send this data to any autonomous fabricators to begin the construction. Post construction, all of the different systems could be outputting large volumes of data that a building controller could use to properly regulate the buildings temperature controls, façade elements, or any other system. It may even be used to detect potential problems in the building’s structure using vibrations, or cleanliness using air particle detection. SQL enables all of this since it will give the various controllers a way to interact with the database. Perhaps more efficient methods will come around and SQL will go the way of Codasyl, but for now it remains the most effective method.

Citations:

Heller, Martin. “What Is SQL? Structured Query Language Explained.” InfoWorld, InfoWorld, 28 Aug. 2017, www.infoworld.com/article/3219795/sql/what-is-sql-structured-query-language-explained.html.

SQLCourse. “What Is SQL?” SQLCourse - Lesson 1: What Is SQL?, IT Business Edge, 20 Aug. 2000, www.sqlcourse.com/intro.html.

Comments:
Sherry L:
Your post is very informative. I am struggling as well with some of these definitions, and had some significant trouble at the start of writing my blog post. The way you define an object is pretty clear, since it makes sense that everything is stored as an object, and that object would have its own set of definitions. What I still don't fully understand is the difference between object oriented databases and relational databases, as you mentioned. The way I think I understand it after your post is that one stores data with certain definitions that group them, while one has sets of definitions with individual objects stored in them. I may be misunderstanding this though, and hope we can have time to cover this in class.

Kerry M:
Thank you for this post, it was like a light-bulb turning on above my head. The source I had used was describing some database strategies using the term "one to many" and I had no idea what they were trying to say, but your topic cleared up what they mean in terms of a database. Between your post and Sherry's, I think I have a decent idea of these types of databases, although I am still a bit fuzzy on the differences between the two. The relational database does seem to drive the SQL model that I had looked into for my blog post, as every command is based on relationships and using them to narrow down the data that you want.

Zac A:
I appreciate how you covered some of the industry databases that we are likely to run into in our jobs. I had heard about P6, but never really realized it was run off of a database, but it makes sense in retrospect. Every activity is related to the other activities and has its own rules and restrictions that need to be kept under control. Your post has helped me to loosen my definition of a database a little bit, as before I pictured them to just be large excel or access spreadsheets full of numbers/data that could only really be interacted as such. The idea that a database can be used in more creative ways such as scheduling and file storage is really interesting and it makes sense that it is widely used in practice. This also bodes well for the use of databases in most intelligent building applications.