July Meeting - How Relational Databases Work with Piers Williams

The July meeting will be Thursday 3rd July at the usual place and time (see below). Here's a description of what you can expect:

How Relational Databases Work with Piers Williams

Got data? Despite relational databases being the default choice for decades, many developers are in the dark about how they actually work. Perhaps they're happy to treat them as a magic box to put data in. Perhaps they looked into it all once, and it looked scary, so they didn't look again. It's a specialist area, right? Ask that other guy.

 

In this session we'll discuss what a relational database is and fundamentally how they work. We'll write our own rudimentary relational database in C#, and examine different approaches for combining data from multiple files. In the process we'll rediscover the three fundamental strategies that relational databases use to combine data, strategies that - as a developer - you will already know and recognize. And we'll see where the 'magic box' mindset breaks down in real life use.

 

If you don't know your MERGE JOIN from your NESTED LOOPS, this is the session for you. You won't leave a database tuning expert, but if you can think about the basics early enough, maybe you won't have to be.

(PS: If you went to my YOW! talk - this is not the same talk, it's a complimentary one)

What: How Relational Databases Work with Piers Williams

Where: Level 1, Bankwest Place (300 Murray St)

When: Thursday 3rd July, 5:30pm

Cost: Free. All Welcome

Tell everyone you work with and tell them to tell everyone. We all use relational databases (unless you escaped, in which case come along and tell us how) and could benefit from a deeper understanding.

P.S. Last time a couple of people advised that they were turned away by security who seemed to have no idea about the user group meeting going on. If you run into issues and have a smartphone on you, email me your phone number on michael.minutilloATgmail.com and I'll ring you and come down to get you. I have a Pebble SmartWatch so emails come straight to my wrist :)

P.P.S. Thanks to Stephen Price we have had access to a Meetup.com account for quite some time and I haven't had the time to investigate it properly (shame on me). Our next meeting will require RSVPs so I will organize the meetup properly and post info here. Watch for it, it's going to be a fun one :)