SQL for Web NerdsPhilip Greenspun
SQL for Web Nerds
by Philip Greenspun · first published 2000
11mentions
7recommended by
7HN commenters
2008–2013first – last mentioned
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Free online guide teaching SQL and relational data modeling through practical web-application examples, such as storing tree-like structures in a database. A good first resource for developers learning databases.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…programming concepts in a simple language, try "Tcl for Web Nerds" (http://philip.greenspun.com/tcl/) -- it's what many Web developers cut their teeth on in the late 90s. For database stuff, check out "SQL for Web Nerds" (http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/).
on “Rails is Definitely Not for Beginners” ↗SQL For Web Nerds is a terrific resource for learning SQL. http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ If your data model is built on top of an RDBMS, learning how one works is the best first step to designing good data models!
on “Ask HN: How can I learn "advanced" data modelling for Rails?” ↗…SQL and DDL before you start messing with ORMs like Rails Active Record or SQLAlchemy and all that stuff. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Celkos-SQL-Smarties-Fourth/dp/0123... Also, maybe just go read "SQL For Web Nerds" right now but take it with a grain of salt and again forget Oracle for now. It's old but good... http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/
on “Ask HN: which database should I learn.” ↗…Perl, which was very good. I learned CSS by reading Eric Meyer's O'Reilly book, pretty much cover to cover, as well as Dan Cederholm's book. I learned SQL (and Tcl as well) from Greenspun's books (e.g. SQL for Web Nerds) which weren't really dedicated and pedantic SQL tutorials but were, in a way, much more useful. Of course, I'm the guy who got bored with BASIC as a kid and decided to teach himself Pascal. So I read…
on “How do you learn?” ↗…tree-like structure, here is a good writeup by Phil Greenspun showing how to model and query tree-like datastructures with an RDBMS: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/trees.html (the rest of the document 'SQL for Web Nerds' is also quite good stuff: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql ) he uses 'connect by', which is a non-standard Oracle extension, the same thing can be achieved with 'with recursive'-queries, which is standard…
on “How FriendFeed uses MySQL to store schema-less data” ↗…CSS, JS, and Python and still do not feel that you know web programming is that none of those things is a database. The database is the important part of web programming. Everything else is frosting. Try SQL for Web Nerds: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ It's getting more dated by the second, half the links are broken, and you will not want to actually use Oracle (try Postgres instead, or do what everyone else does…
on “Ask HN: Advice for a young, self-taught programmer” ↗…building web apps using OpenACS - http://openacs.org/. OpenACS was all Tcl executing in AOLServer and used postgres or oracle. It was awesome. I Learned a lot from "Tcl for Web Nerds" and its companion "SQL for web nerds" (all links listed here: http://openacs.org/doc/ ). Back when I started Tcl, I was more like a emacs-lisp script kiddie. Because Tcl was so easy to learn and because OpenACS was such a great MVC style…
on “Tcl the misunderstood (2006)” ↗…a car's engine before being told what a stoplight is or how to merge onto the freeway. And it might help explain why my coworkers think I'm some sort of RDBMS genius when all I've ever done was read SQL for Web Nerds: Database researchers love to talk about relational algebra, n-tuples, normal form, and natural composition, while throwing around mathematical symbols. This patina of mathematical obscurity tends to…
on “Application vs Database Programming” ↗I have a soft spot for books that I can read on my BlackBerry. SICP, The Art of Unix Programming, Software Engineering for Internet Applications, SQL for Web Nerds, Practical Common Lisp, Dive Into Python, now Simply Scheme. If only the Handbook of Applied Cryptography had their chapters in HTML.
on “How to Learn Stuff While Procrastinating Online” ↗http://www.scripting.com (1998/1999) -> http://philip.greenspun.com (sql for web nerds) -> http://joelonsoftware.com -> http://www.paulgraham.com (A plan for spam 2002) -> news.ycombinator.com -> profit? Something like that. Before this the Joel on Software forum was what…
…(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArsDigita) recruits were required to solve during the first bubble. UPDATE: Philip explains automatic code generation here (http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/metadata), and the "SQL for Web Nerds" book he references in the pset has been moved to (http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/).
on “Automatic programming: write code that writes code” ↗