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Discussion on: What did you have the hardest time learning?

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair • Edited

To be honest, relational databases.

They seem so straightforward, right?

I went into university as a self-taught C/asm programmer and I thought I knew a fair bit. My databases course was really difficult.

I admit I was that student who didn't always turn up on time, or at all.

I got 0% on my databases exam, because I handed in a piece of "artwork" instead. I drew a scene with a man in tatty clothing lugging a grandfather clock on his back down a long stretch of beach. I remember this because it was a representation of how I felt time was dragging in the exam, and I didn't understand the questions well enough to bother trying to answer them; I knew I would fail.

It wasn't until years later, when PHP/MySQL was just starting to get attention, and I found an example of the simplest thing on someone's website. It showed me how to make a guestbook. Remember them? And it explained what it was doing step-by-step, and I understood it without even furrowing my brow.

The lecturers at my university had thrown us into the technical side of things straight away, trying to teach us data concepts without giving the simple example, the td;dr we're used to seeing at the top of documentation these days.

Then I went on to become the SQL ninja I am today, who only rarely brings down production with a missing clause.

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LyAVALE95

I had a similar "climbing road" for data structures.

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Jordy Lee

Haha tell me about it. Thought I could wing my intro to databases class with some programming knowledge... Guess the joke was on me 😥