Hi,
My question is, what's the hardest database fundamental to learn for a beginner, and why?
1) table setup
2) queries
3) other

Thanks.

Depends on the beginner.

-PatP

for many beginners it seems to be relational table design
after that its learning to harness the power of SQL to do what you want.

after that you are into more esoteric country in terms of maintenance, query optimisation and so on

3) other -- thinking in sets

Not to be confused with thinking insects.

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

No no, bug fixes are important too.

4) the nerdy banter

Thanks. What are sets?

see? told ya!!

Remember back in high school, that semester you studied Venn Diagrams?
Remember thinking to yourself, "What possible use is this nonsense?"
Welcome to our world.

Thanks for the info.

Table setup is not a database fundamental. Design Theory is. Good question though.

Perhaps one of the hardest things for the inexperienced is to adjust their thinking for different kinds of data models (I mean "model" in the most general senses, such as "semantic models", "the Relational Model", "hierarchical model"). Many people will have a good comprehension of some models and find it harder to adjust to others. To quote William Kent (in his book Data and Reality):

"A model is more than a passive medium for recording our view of reality. It shapes that view, and limits our perceptions. If a mind is committed to a certain model, then it will perform amazing feats of distortion to see things structured that way, and will simply be blind to the things which don't fit that structure."

Most database beginners still think like programmers, one row at a time. Most modern databases work in a fundamentally different way, in that you specify WHAT you want done and what SET of rows you want that done to, then let the database engine figure out the best way to accomplish the job. Using sets instead of rows tends to lead to performance improvements from ten to a thousand times what the row based performance was.

-PatP

Thanks for the replies. I understand the mathematical concept of "sets", but is there possibly a simple example to illustrate the row thinking vs set thinking concept?

sure -- "return the last three rows of the table"

Ignorance alert::::::

If the records have an "auto number" field, couldn't you determine the highest autonumber and return it and -1 and -2?
Or is the problem "return the last three rows if there is no autonumber field". If so, is the answer to determine what field in the rows can be used to determine the last three?