Getting started with SQL

In Chapter 5, Using Business Intelligence Tools to Fix Data Integrity Issues, we worked with spreadsheets to manage and organize data. Spreadsheets can be used to perform various calculations, data processing, and basic data storage operations. However, there are other ways to store and manage information, especially when the data grows in volume. For one, we can make use of databases, which are specialized systems designed to store, retrieve, and manage vast amounts of structured data. They offer a structured framework with clear linkages between data tables, facilitating more effective data management and querying.

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a programming language that’s used to manage relational databases. Two of the most popular types of relational databases are MySQL and PostgreSQL. MySQL, which was developed by Oracle, is the most widely used relational database management system. In this chapter, we will be using PostgreSQL, which is...