Day 25 Database Definition & Control, Capstone Code Review

14 Feb 2020

This morning started by talking about database definition language (DDL) which covered granting and revoke access of users to the database. These SQL commands are most often used by database admins and Brian let us know that it is unlikely we will have to use these in our early career.

We transition to talking about database control language (DCL) which covered creating the database schema. This is SQL code which defines the structure of the database. Also not likely we will use this, but it is possible especially if we are creating personal projects. Our exercises for the day focus on design a database schema and creating it with these commands.

Until today, we had been covering database manipulation language (DML). Brian told us that most developers just call this language SQL because they rarely have to deal with DCL or DDL.

The last thing we talked about was database normalization. Normalization refers to database design that:

• Prevents duplicate data
• Uses keys to reference groups of like data
• Has no transitive dependencies

Career Strategy:

After class, I had a career strategy meeting with Ben. We talked about career goals and my LinkedIn page. It was a casual meeting and I left feeling pretty well prepared for the job hunt soon to come.

Code Review:

At the tail end of the day was the code review for my first capstone project. Suzan and I sat with Brian for an hour and went through all of our code. There were a few cases where we could have encapsulated more functionality and others where we could have created our own Exception classes. Overall though, it seemed like Brian was impressed that we took so much time to plan out our design. Despite a few things we could have done better, the ways our classes interacted with each other were consistent and made sense. This was a great meeting and the feedback constructive.