Yesterday I learned that computer science students do not learn about databases and SQL.
This came up in a conversation about database design and poor SQL execution being the bottle neck in poorly performing software applications, almost all the time.
A recent CS grad said “I guess I should learn SQL.” I laughed. I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.
As I pried a little deeper, I learned that students didn’t learn about Relational Database Systems either. This means that the next round of developers that pay a gross amount of money to a University to learn how to build software graduate without being taught about foreign keys, primary keys, indexes, database normalization, etc..
But they can analyze various sorting algorithms, which are included in every programming language I’ve ever used. They can also talk theoretically about the speed of certain algorithms.
Analyzing algorithms is really important. But disproportionately favored over really important things for working software developers.
If you’re a CS student. Please take the electives. If you’ve graduated, please invest the time to learn about databases and best practices. It will serve you well.