I entered the tech industry through SQL. When I came to work as a business analyst, I was handed the credentials to an Oracle database, pointers to some tables, and let loose.
Because SQL is declarative, it’s probably the least intimidating programming language to start with, and it remains one of my favorite technologies because what you see is mostly what you get.
But coming from the world of consulting where all I knew were spreadsheets and manipulating tabs upon tabs of pivot tables, I had no clue what was going on. Indexes, b-trees, blobs, transactions and other terms flew buy my head.
“Think of a table as a file cabinet, and indexes as drawers labeled A-C, D-F, and so on,” my manager at the time said, and I was introduced to IT terminology by analogy.
I’m now at a point in my career where, at the same time as I’m learning, I’ve also begun to help more junior people. I’ve taught countless …
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