CST 363 Week 2

Week 2

I got my new computer running Windows this week (just in time to install Oracle)! I upgraded it to Windows 10 and have played with it a bit to get more familiar with Windows. There were a couple of hiccups in the installation of Oracle, but overall it wasn't too bad once the two installation directories were properly merged after unzipping them (heh).

As for this week's content, it's been pretty basic. We covered relational algebra and most of the basic syntax for SQL statements. There were a couple of pieces that were new to me, such as the "flashback" command that was mentioned in the professor's slides (textbook doesn't cover it). Also, the idea of division of tables required some extra research to understand. I ended up stumbling upon this slideshow that had some good examples that helped me understand it.

The structure of this course has been very easy to follow. I like that each week is broken up into smaller sections. However, I'm finding that I don't like the textbook. The book felt extremely dumbed down in the relational algebra section. I would have appreciated some examples of how to format written relational algebra statements and some explanations of the symbols commonly used would have helped as well.