Week 1 - Intro to Database Systems
Relational database tables and spreadsheets look similar with both having rows and columns. What are some important differences between the two?
Spreadsheets are a smaller form of organizing and manipulating data used in simpler tasks that are usually shared between a few users while a relational database table can be shared by many users with larger manageable accessibility like user permissions and access controls. Another difference is that a relational database offers constraints to properly manage what can be manipulated. While spreadsheets do have a way to do this they are more susceptible to inconsistently manipulating data. Since databases work with stricter data types it'll be more manageable to do queries in larger data sets. Databases can also be utilized by integration of an application and are utilized in larger enterprises, while spreadsheets store less data and can only be utilized through certain plugins and extensions. The overall difference is that relational database tables offer flexibility with larger datasets while spreadsheets are functional for smaller data sets.
Installing and configuration a database and learning how to use it is more complicated that just reading and writing data to a file. What are some important reasons that makes a database a useful investment of time?
A database will be a useful investment of time because of its ability to provide better structure, maintainability, and be much more powerful than reading and writing data to a file. Databases will offer much more reliability in data accessibility by making it easier to find specific data and modifying them. It will also help security wise by offering ways to constrain data access; handling who can access that data while also having many users to handle large amounts of data without conflicts. Another important reason is that databases are useful in backup and recovery of data since database systems need to recover from failure and restore without losing data.
What do you want to learn in this course that you think will be useful in your future career?
In this course I want to learn more about the overall creation and management of a database. I have only been working with data via parsing through JSON files and a small implementation of SQLite through the Room database wrapper in Android Studio. I learned a general idea of querying data but I want to dig deeper and learn more about how data is queried with the SQL language and its utilization in database management systems like MySQL. I also want to learn how it actually does these query actions behind the scenes. Understanding how database systems function is an important step for a career in technology because so many things are driven by data nowadays. I want to pursue a career in Health Informatics and I know for a fact that health care systems utilize many database systems to track medical records, transactions, and security. So overall understanding how a database works and being able to utilize it will be important in a future career in health care.
Spreadsheets are a smaller form of organizing and manipulating data used in simpler tasks that are usually shared between a few users while a relational database table can be shared by many users with larger manageable accessibility like user permissions and access controls. Another difference is that a relational database offers constraints to properly manage what can be manipulated. While spreadsheets do have a way to do this they are more susceptible to inconsistently manipulating data. Since databases work with stricter data types it'll be more manageable to do queries in larger data sets. Databases can also be utilized by integration of an application and are utilized in larger enterprises, while spreadsheets store less data and can only be utilized through certain plugins and extensions. The overall difference is that relational database tables offer flexibility with larger datasets while spreadsheets are functional for smaller data sets.
Installing and configuration a database and learning how to use it is more complicated that just reading and writing data to a file. What are some important reasons that makes a database a useful investment of time?
A database will be a useful investment of time because of its ability to provide better structure, maintainability, and be much more powerful than reading and writing data to a file. Databases will offer much more reliability in data accessibility by making it easier to find specific data and modifying them. It will also help security wise by offering ways to constrain data access; handling who can access that data while also having many users to handle large amounts of data without conflicts. Another important reason is that databases are useful in backup and recovery of data since database systems need to recover from failure and restore without losing data.
What do you want to learn in this course that you think will be useful in your future career?
In this course I want to learn more about the overall creation and management of a database. I have only been working with data via parsing through JSON files and a small implementation of SQLite through the Room database wrapper in Android Studio. I learned a general idea of querying data but I want to dig deeper and learn more about how data is queried with the SQL language and its utilization in database management systems like MySQL. I also want to learn how it actually does these query actions behind the scenes. Understanding how database systems function is an important step for a career in technology because so many things are driven by data nowadays. I want to pursue a career in Health Informatics and I know for a fact that health care systems utilize many database systems to track medical records, transactions, and security. So overall understanding how a database works and being able to utilize it will be important in a future career in health care.
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