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In a business setting, the conceptual/relational, logical and physical design of a database happens far less often than querying such databases.

Indeed, one of the reasons normalisation is such a Big Deal to relational bigots like me is that it makes SQL's querying tools much more useful and versatile.



True story, but such questions are just senseless.

If someone knows about set-theory and the ideas behind query-languages, knowing SQL isn't a deal breaker, it's just a nice to have.


Folk generally don't study relational algebra, on its own, for fun.


SQL is one of those technologies that caps how much enjoyment you can derive from understanding the related theory. Scheme, for instance, never stops giving, but you can hit a point with SQL where you start to wonder: where's my Tutorial D?


And where are my proper temporal primitives?

It sucks, but it's what we have for now.


They really should.


If someone knows set theory, they're likely not interviewing for a LOB CRUD job banging out Rails models.




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