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SQL Vs. Access for Learning Database Concepts?
Jonathan Hamilton asks: "I work at the School of Communications for a major state University. The IT Department for the University (the same people that won't let us have a firewall, and use IIS and Exchange) is trying to talk my boss into switching from using SQL for teaching database concepts to MS Access. My coworkers and I think they are nuts. I have googled for pages comparing the two and can't come up with anything. I know some of the reasons why it is a bad idea, but I can't find any references. Help!" The mantra here is: the best tool for the best job. Is Access a suitable tool for teaching database concepts to students? If not, what would you use instead, and why?
Somehow no one seems to know this: you can execute SQL queries from within the Access GUI.
While editing a query, just click the View menu and go to "SQL View".
So, you can start out with the basics of databases using just Access' GUI tools, and then graduate to SQL without having to switch environments.
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Use both, really. Having Access gives you rights to use it in conjunction with the MSDE, which is sql server with some limitations.
Access can also be a pass-thru front end to other ODBC enabled RDBMSs.
meh.
- Database Journal has an article comparing SQL Server 2000 and Access 2000, but the feature list shouldn't have changed much. The charts that you are interested in are at the bottom right before the conclusion.
- Here's a speed comparison between MySQL and Access.
- Here's a great comparison of many SQL technologies including Access.
You do realize that you can install MySQL on a server and use Access as the front end via ODBC, don't you. If you do that, you can teach both and show the reasons why a particular solution would fit particular needs in addition to teaching the bare DB concepts. To me, this is the most open ended solution without having to create problems with people at work.US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Access has the most overhead according to this.
Here's a link to a discussion where the poster states that Access is not good for large installations...
You might check with IBM (DB2), Oracle, MySQL, or Postgres for help as well...I'm sure they'ld be more than happy to help.
Cross platform compatability. Students with Windoze, Linux, or Macs can run most SQL servers...not so with Access...
And then there's the corporate settings...most companies are using DB2, Oracle, MySql, or something that is ANSI-SQL compatible...not M$ SQL...
You also have more utilities and help available for SQL than Access...
There's GUI tools, schema browsers, etc all available for SQL...
If your school runs its website on a *NIX server, you could up-play the compatibility angle...you know, senior projects and such...
One major advantage of SQL is that all of the companies/organizations that I mentioned are free or have a free educational version...I doubt M$ does...
I second this. In the into to DB class I took, we didnt even get to any languages at all without going through all the basics, normalizations, etc. Only at the VERY END of the class did we actually use databases, and for that we used oracle. (school had a large piece of sun iron running it, but the class was flexible about using mysql and other databases that understand SQL)
So take the parent posters theme to heart:
Teach the how and why first, then teach someones interpretation(implementation) of that.
This
Please explain this.
... is the outer query (or outer statement), and (SELECT column1 FROM t2) is the subquery. We say that the subquery is nested in the outer query, and in fact it's possible to nest subqueries within other subqueries, to a great depth. A subquery must always be inside parentheses.
From the page:
6.4.2 Subquery Syntax
A subquery is a SELECT statement inside another statement. For example:
SELECT * FROM t1 WHERE column1 = (SELECT column1 FROM t2);
In the above example, SELECT * FROM t1
Starting with version 4.1, MySQL supports all subquery forms and operations which the SQL standard requires, as well as a few features which are MySQL-specific.