I open my own site Simply SQL and I would like to mention in few words some of the things that will be covered in here. At least for the beginning. For sure, looking at the name of the site, it is easy to acknowledge that the site will mainly cover simply the old fashioned SQL language. I know, you will surely say, how boring! With this explosion of new technologies, who cares about this ancient and simple language such SQL? With so many new ways of storing and handling data who cares about this classic relational model anymore? And, at least but not last, with so many books on the market and so many articles and sites SQL related, where is the need for a new one?

On the other hand, the IT market is full of SQL. The SQL is everywhere, embedded in Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and all the others, part of so many complex systems in various areas of the business. So much SQL is embedded in Java nowadays when everyone tries to call the Java magicians to resolve the mysteries of any system in his ways, this Gandalf of modern IT times that is responsible, among others things, with a lot of SQL embedded in his Java code.

Consequently, despite the evidences mentioned in the first paragraph, looking at the facts mentioned in the second, I might say that there might still be need for some considerations regarding SQL. I do not have, under any circumstances, I have no claim to rediscover the wheel. I am just a passionate SQL developer and I would like to say my word in some places where I have enough experience to do that. Being graduated in Philosophy and Mathematics, I like to reflect time to time on what I am doing, so that is one additional reason I try to gather various reflections, here in my own site.
As a programmer, I continuously google into various sites looking for peoples opinions based on their experience. I try to offer my experience and be helpful a bit, along with so many others IT specialists, database guys considering the particular topic in discussion. I do strongly hope that some programmers, or maybe analysts or designers or IT managers, will find anything useful in my articles and exercises. I know the chances are not so high, considering the large amount of information available in the Internet.

However, despite the odds, I will try to speak for SQL and share my reflections and thoughts. By this I firstly understand, a lot of SQL code. Don’t worry, we all know that most of the programmers (no generalization, please) hate words and talk when talking about their occupation, programming. A programmer nowadays, in my humble opinion, is a slave of the code. Don’t dare to try to take him away from his lines of code because he/she will not have the patience to listen to you and he will leave you quickly! I can see that looking at myself, even if maybe I am not a complete prisoner of my code, maybe because I am not an authentic programmer. I was a teacher for ten years before starting programming, I did Philosophy in the mean time and work as a Journalist for some time, so I am that kind of converted programmer. But, even so, after 20 years of work, I can see how I am becoming more and more code dependent. So, to conclude this paragraph, don’t worry my friend, Simply SQL will be a site of SQL. So, code is the first priority and this is what you will firstly see.
More practically, because SQL means so many things. What SQL, more precisely? First of all, I will cover Oracle and SQL Server, most of the examples being taken from any of the two. Anyway, I will also consider PostgreSQL and maybe others database systems too. But most of the examples and exercises will be Oracle or SQL Server based. In general, I do not plan to promote and to describe features, although these might show up as consequences of my goals.

So, to reach to this point, what are my goals? I have spoken earlier about my desired audience, mainly programmers using SQL, business analysts, and any kind of person that is in contact with SQL in one way or another. My goals are to try to help these people and offer examples taken from my direct day to day experience, explain various ways to solve various SQL problems. I am sure many of them may already been somewhere in the Internet in another way.
However, sometimes one specific scenario can be described in many articles over the Internet and that is not necessarily a bad thing, if the scenario is really useful. Reaching to this point, and trying to find a keyword for my site and the list of exercises that will follow, I would like to consider my site useful to people that reads it.

So, to finish this introduction, I am very excited to share my thoughts with you. Welcome to Simply SQL, and see how simple is SQL, after all!