Introducing SQL

We'll be doing a few riddles, an Excel VBA tip (searching in our first assignment), finishing our Advanced Queries in Access from last week, before venturing on to find out...

...what is SQL? Do I really need to know? (or want to know?). There's a great introduction on SQL at Access Tips (as well as lots of other great tips for Access):

Anyone who has built anything but the most basic of queries using the Access query design window has already been using SQL without knowing it. Criteria like: Between #01/01/2003# AND #01/07/2003# or Not("London") or In("London", "Paris", "NewYork") are all phrases from the SQL language.

Access contains many tools and wizards that hep the user create a powerful database without having to learn SQL. But if you are at all serious about database building (and the fact that you are reading this suggests that you are!) a knowledge of SQL will help you build better, more powerful databases. So my answer is an emphatic "YES!".

This week we want to answer just two things:

• What is SQL (not just what it stands for, but what does it do)
• What's in it for me? (ie. What benefits are there to learning SQL?)

and then, using the simplest Access query in your database (any database), see if you can find the SQL for your query. Create a new post on your blog answering the two questions above, then paste in your SQL query and explain how your SQL queries works (what it does)!