I was going to talk about point-of-view here, but then I realized that many of you are writers and probably know all about first person and third person omniscient and all that jazz, so I’ll talk about another kind of view…
I was at one time Heap Big Technical Guy who was responsible for maintaining the training environments at my next-to-last employer. One of my responsibilities was to install the application, which was written in Java and used SQL databases, in our case either Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle. When I worked for my brother, I built myself a database using MySQL for the stuff I was keeping track of, and would produce a report every day that I had created from the previous day’s data.
I’m telling you all of that for no other reason than to say I know SQL databases pretty well, and only had one class where I learned all the jargon and technical terms and the SQL query language so I could get data both into and out of the databases. Trust me, it’s a whole lot simpler than working with IMS, IDMS, Datacom, or any of the other databases we had back in the olden days, when we would punch cards with a hammer and chisel.
Anyhow…
A SQL database consists of one or more tables (called in database lingo relations) which conceptually look like Excel spreadsheets. In fact, you can load data from Excel spreadsheets into the tables. The trick when writing programs or queries was to know how to connect (or JOIN) the tables to each other so you could actually use the data and produce reports. See, databases go through a process called normalization, which means the data is separated into separate tables to minimize the amount of repeated data there is in them.
If your database administrator (DBA) is a nice guy, he might define a view that does all the joining of tables that you would have to do manually. Views are convenient ways of looking at the databases, and can be used to query the database or update it. It takes care of getting all the data together in one place for producing reports or adding additional records to the database.
The other use of views is security. There might be certain data that you don’t want everyone seeing, like executive salaries, or updating, like your own salary. The DBA can create views that have just the information users need to do their job, and restrict them to only using those views to do so.
That’s all I have to say about the wonderful world of SQL databases and views, other than to say WordPress uses MySQL databases, and if you decide to install WordPress on your own server you’ll need to allocate a database for use with it. It helps to know something about it. Fortunately, all of the documentation is available online. You can even download the Reference Manual (it’s in HTML, PDF, and EPUB formats) so you have a copy all for yourself.
Good luck….
Brother Doug handles risk management for Allstate in Northbrook, IL. He makes sure the database systems run reliably for a couple divisions of DBAs. I wouldn’t want his job – very high pressure, but he’s good at it.
A former girlfriend used to write IDMS and COBOL(!) as a contractor. Yolanda always called it ‘squeal’ code.
Another view is ViewMaster. I had one of their stereo viewers and many of their wheeled slide packets from tourist attractions around the world. Because of psycho-visual quirks we all have, presenting slightly different views to each eye gives a scene apparent depth, making it look like you can reach right into it. That’s why VR goggles work.
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Henry Fonda used to advertise the Viewmasters, didn’t he?
SQL and relational databases are a whole lot easier to work with than the ones we used forty years ago, like IMS-DL/1 (same thing but called one or the other based on the operating system), IDMS, Datacom (the first sorta-kinda relational database I worked with), Total, ADABAS, DMSII (exclusive to Burroughs machines) and all the others, each of which had a different structure and different ways of communicating with them. Believe me, it was much worse…
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View is a great word for today and can be taken in so many different ways. When it comes to computers and all you wrote here, I understood…nada…hahahaaa
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SQL is a lot less esoteric than most other computer languages. But it helps to have some background in them.
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Understood none of that except the end result, view. Glad there are Heap Big Technical Guys like you out there to help us!
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SQL databases are actually pretty easy to work with, especially when compared to the old days when they were all different and needed totally different syntax to work with.
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Except for the fact that this reminds me ever so much of my day job, John, this is a good post. I can’t wait to put those views in the rear view mirror.
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A lot of times I find myself creating a database and having to go through all those SQL comands. It’s like riding a bicycle…
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I love sql
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SQL is something I never did get comfortable with. I tried, but good grief. I’ll leave it to pros like you.
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It’s not that hard, but it’s not something you pick up if you haven’t done some programming. It’s a lot simpler than some of the older databases. If you’re running WordPress on your own, knowing something about MySQL can be realy helpful.
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I don’t personally work in SQL but am familiar with the terminology associated with it as my day job is in the software world. Creative post about “views”. WeekendsInMaine
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A novel way to look at VIEW. Isn’t it great that what is a norm for one person is totally fresh to another?!
Affirmations for a Good Life
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John, I took two years of programming all now forgotten. Part of me would like to go back to school to learn new computer language coding but I don’t have the drive to do it. I piece enough together html to get by in blogging when needed. Perhaps if I were 30 years younger then I’d go back to school. Interesting “V” post!
~Curious as a Cathy
Art Sketching Through the Alphabet “V” (Violin & Victorian Women)
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Wow – that’s amazing! BUT – can’t you solve the mystery of why it’s so hard to post on a Blogger blog from a Wordrpress platform?
W is for Madam C. J. Walker, First Female Self-Made Millionaire in U.S., #AtoZ Challenge
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Don’t get me started on Blogger. Google bought it and doesn’t seem interested in changing anything about it other than to figure out how to put ads on it. The interface appears to have been written in the last century.
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Interesting post
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