Is MySQL Hard To Learn & Is It The Best Database? hard

	Is MySQL Hard To Learn & Is It The Best Database? - hard
	Discussion by Cookiemonster with 11 Replies. Last Update: July 10, 2005, 10:40 pm

Cookiemonster

mysql is really hard to me , i cant understand it all i know is a very very little bit of php and asp and quiet a lot of html as we learning web design at my school, which is pretty good. But databasing pretty hard, iv only used it once in my life and still had to get my friend to do it for me.

but what do you think of mysql?

and do you think its the best databasing ever?

Fri Jun 10, 2005 Reply New Discussion

z4ch

MySQL is a great free sql-compliant (for the most part.. it's actually not 100-percent compliant with the sql standards but no popular sql server is afaik) sql database server. I'd say go with Oracle if you could afford it but MySQL is good.

Honestly, you'll probably want to go with PHP since it seems to be very robust and easy to learn. One thing you will need to do is learn how to read the documentation at php.net.

Oddly enough, http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/ has a good number of examples on how to use MySQL through PHP (or really, enough to really get you started).

Hope that helps.

Fri Jun 10, 2005 Reply New Discussion

Cookiemonster

ok cheers m8 , and i dont probably have the money for that other one lol

but sql i use with my php because its my chat network but the web interface bit not server side as i am running a server for the other half that is needed.

Ill check those tutorials out as well cheers

Sat Jun 11, 2005 Reply New Discussion

kevinparsons

A few questions-

Is there a difference between Php and mysql?

Is that what you use to create online games and have people be able to logon to accts and stuff, like outwar.com, or kingofchaos.com?

Can anyone do something like that or would you have to get a certain kind of hostign or server?

Tue Jun 14, 2005 Reply New Discussion

Klass

uh kevin,

PHP is a scripting language like HTML
MySQL is a database program like Windows SQL, it is used to store information.

Tue Jun 14, 2005 Reply New Discussion

miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

QUOTE (kevinparsons)

A few questions-

Is there a difference between Php and mysql?

Yep - there's a very very big difference. PHP is a scripting language that is used to generate web-pages with dynamic (changing) content - such as this forum. This board has been entirely written in PHP - but PHP has the ability to generate HTML web-pages, so what you see in your browser is the static HTML web-page. When you refresh this page, once again PHP updates wahetever is to be updated and generates a fresh page which is then sent to your browser as static HTML.

Now where does PHP get all the new values or store all the old values (such as post, counts, credits, the actual posts themselves) ?? That's where MySQL comes into play. MySQL is a Relational Database Management System, or in plain words a Database Server than can serve databases online. This is the back-end of such forum software, and is utilized by PHP to store all sort of values in the background. MySQL is completely transparent and you don't see anything to do with it on these pages.. But it's running silently in the background and storing each and every little bit to do with this forum ... even the Shoutbox on top uses MySQL to store the shouts along with time-date stamps and usernames...

QUOTE

Is that what you use to create online games and have people be able to logon to accts and stuff, like outwar.com, or kingofchaos.com?

Yep pretty much - all these online games use some form of RDMS (whether mysql, postgresql or ms-sql) - to store and update user & gameplay data in the background...

QUOTE

Can anyone do something like that or would you have to get a certain kind of hostign or server?

Nope you cannot do all this on any & every web-host. Only the paid ones and a HANDFUL of good free one's like astahost offer these features. Once you get hosting here at Astahost, you'll have access to 99 MySQL databases of your choice (you create them yourself as you wish and use them in conjunction with PHP to serve your pages).... And if you want to set up such a server yourself, a simple Linux server with MySQL, PHP and Apache installed will see to all your needs.

Hope this clarifies your doubts...
Regards,
m^e

Tue Jun 14, 2005 Reply New Discussion

Hercco

QUOTE (Klass)

uh kevin,

PHP is a scripting language like HTML
MySQL is a database program like Windows SQL, it is used to store information.

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PHP is a interpreted programming language which are often referred as scripting languages. HTML is a markup language and has nothing to do with programming.

And for mySQL, proper term would probably be database management system which is several programs and methods for storaging the data (to files, that is).

m^e's post was good but I'd like to point out that PHP can be used to other things than outputting HTML. That is just the most common use for it and what the first versions were originally designed just for. Originalyl the abreviation was Personal Homepage but laters changed to Hypertext Preprocessor. Both indicate the most common use and the optimation of the language.

To mention few things that can be done with PHP would be command line scripts (like shell scripts) and binary file processing (images often, also binary document types such as pdf).

Cookiemonster asked if mySQL was the best DBMS ever... Well it probably isn't. That is if you take account all the features that DBMS can have. MySQL is very fast and thus very suitable for relatively simple use. But the speed comes from the fact that it doesn't have nearly as much features and its commercial competitors.
But considering how databases are typically used on webpages, the extra features that the heavier systems posses are probably 99% of the time useless and the speed in fact is far more important. So I'd dare to say that for website use 8such as discussion forums) mySQL is the best DBMS.

Wed Jun 15, 2005 Reply New Discussion

chvrnt

hello,
I was just wondering how hard it is to learn mysql. I was told that the easiest scripting langguage to use is coldfusion which is supported by dreamweaver. I just started reading and learning the coldfusion but i have no idea if i will have to spend years in learning mysql?

Thu Jun 16, 2005 Reply New Discussion

miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG

Actually, apart from setting up your MySQL server, the learning curve is quite high - it's only the setting up and fine-tuning part that takes time and patience, coz you got to understand a wide variety of topics on networked databases and the data-flow among various hosts.

The SQL (Structured Query Language) part of MySQL - with which you manipulate all the data, is very easy to learn, as SQL, unlike other prorgamming/scripting languages, employ a very basic syntax of clear-cut english words - which are very easy to understand and follow. Let me give you a couple of simple examples:

CODE

SELECT * FROM myTable

This code simply selects all the data that you have in a table named myTable

Another one:

CODE

SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE ID='abcd'

This is an extension of the above statement (also known as a Query) - which selects data from the same table, but only the rows, where the field called ID has 'abcd' as the data... Similarly, say you want to delete all the rows in a table where the ID matches 'abcd'

CODE

DELETE FROM myTable WHERE ID='abcd'

Now do you see - how simple the statements are ? As long as you know english - it's not a problem at all - almost all statements are self-evident, i.e. you can figure out the function of the statement by just reading over it a couple of times...Obviously SQL involves a huge array of such statements to allow you to manipulate data in almost every conceivable way.. but as I said .. they're all in plain clear English

Hope this helps

Thu Jun 16, 2005 Reply New Discussion

THE_DUDE

mysql arn't hard

Wed Jun 22, 2005 Reply New Discussion

Chris Neutral

Is SQL difficult? No. It's a very simple language to learn. It's learning curve is no more difficult than HTML's learning curve. They are both very easy to learn and to utilize, so that's not even an issue.

What is the best database? That is totally subjective. There are different types of databases, each created for a certain group of people. For example, MySQL is great for those who want something that can process data quickly, and because it is free of charge. Oracle on the other hand was created for industrial-strength companies that need an efficient, feature-packed database program that can store tens of thousands of customers and whatever else.

Of course, there are others in between, like PostGRE, MSSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Access, and a myriad of others.

Sat Jul 9, 2005 Reply New Discussion

sachavdk

QUOTE (z4ch)

[post="38585"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

True.

I'm pretty familiar with php, mysql and a little oracle (for almost a year I think), and Oracle is indeed the database server (it's my opinion though). But if you want to make a personal website, MySQL is ok because you probably won't have hundreds of visitors who ask lots of heavy queries.
Though Oracle is actually the hard one of the two (and expensive while MySQL is free).

But what I actually post here, here's a link to http://www.devshed.com/ and I think it is the best place for tutorials for web-programming. It might seem a complicated site but it is convenient once you've found your way.

Hope it's useful