Structural Query Language (SQL)

What is SQL?

SQL basically stands for Structured Query Language. It is used for the communication purpose with the database. As per American National Standards Institute (ANSI), it is considered as the standard language for the relational database management systems. The SQL statements are generally used for the execution of various tasks which includes the data retrieving from the database, and data updating from the database. There are different relational database management systems, which use the SQL. Donald Chamberlin and Raymond Boyce at IBM developed SQL in the early 1970s. It was initially released in 1979 by the Relational Software Inc. which is nowadays known as Oracle Corporation. The newest version of the SQL is vendor-compliant. Voluntary, which is supervised by the ANSI (American National Standards Institute).

These systems are Sybase, Access, Ingres, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, etc. The Standard SQL commands include “Insert,” “Select,” “Create,” “Update,” “Delete,” and “Drop.” There are several which are using different dialects. These are:

Oracle using SQL
MS Access version of SQL
MS SQL Server using T-SQL

Advantages of SQL

Various benefits of SQL are as following:

SQL allows its users to describe the data and users can have access to data in the relational database management systems.
SQL also has the facility to embed within various languages. This is possible with the help of SQL libraries, SQL pre-compilers, and SQL modules.
SQL also has the facility of creating and dropping the databases and tables.
It also helps in defining the data in the database as well as to manipulate the data in the database.
The user can also create and view the stored procedure and the functions in the database.
The SQL also helps in Live Queries, Backend to websites, and assists in report generation.

SQL Process

When the user executes an SQL command for the RDBMS, the system finds the best way for proceeding the user’s request, and the primary task of the SQL engine is to figure out the interpretation of the function. The various modules of the SQL architecture used in this overall process are as follows:

Figure 1: SQL Architecture

Why it is important to learn SQL?

It is essential to learn SQL. There are various reasons to learn the SQL. The reasons are as following:

SQL provides handsome Income

Learning SQL seems to be a great way in terms of Salaries. The average salary for the SQL developer is around $92,000. The SQL Database Administrators, the individuals who are more indulge in the running modules of the databases, have the approximate salary of about $97,000. This is considered as the pretty good salary for living,

SQL has the common standard

SQL is generally used by all the database management systems, like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle, SQL Server, and IBM DB2. The implementation of the SQL can be different for every vendor, but the core language is same for all. SQL is at the leading position in the industry.

SQL is easy to learn language

For the beginners, the SQL seems to be the accessible language. In some language like JAVA or C#, the user needs to follow the specific procedure to solve the problem, whereas the SQL is considered as the declarative language. The user needs to tell the system what data is to deliver and the SQL engine itself does the rest of the work. The SQL hides the data transaction procedure from its users, so there is no such complicated procedure includes in the SQL.

Versatile Nature

SQL databases are more stable and scalable. SQ is considered as the standard for all the relational databases. SQL is supported by all the major DBMS platforms. If the individual knows the SQL, then he can switch from one database to another very quickly and efficiently.