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Ask Slashdot: Learning DB the Right Way; Books, Tutorials, or What?

Posted by timothy on from the first-you'll-need-to-choose-a-safeword dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I have deep experience programming in many languages, and I've some exposure to SQL through PostgreSQL. My math goes so far as trig and algebra, with a little statistics. So far, I've learned enough to be dangerous: mostly via other people's code, experimenting, the PostgreSQL docs, etc. I've been successful using the DB in various ways, but I know I am missing a great deal (and probably doing it wrong, at that.) When DB articles come up on Slashdot, I don't recognize a good deal of the terminology. What is the best way for a technical person to learn SQL/DB work using PostgreSQL? Books? Tutorials? I should mention I don't have local access to a university or people with DB knowledge; have to do this on my own, so books or the Internet are pretty much my options."

3 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. No Obligatory XKCD by rwa2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh well, goes along with the theme:

    http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2011/01/nosql.html

    1. Re:No Obligatory XKCD by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Funny

      once he has put on a db here's a handy reference http://howfuckedismydatabase.com/

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. LDAP? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here's a stupid question.
    Why not put all data into the ldap, next to all the login information etc.
    Then you can learn to be a bad ass sysadmin who allows you to login from everywhere AND learn a database at the same time! Many apps like mail clients, server daemons can integrate with ldap! You can do cloud computing : sync your phone contacts to it.
    If you're working in a company, tell the boss you now only need the Windows AD domain controller. It's awesome consolidation and cost savings. Also, it's a mature, market leading NoSQL implementation.