Our objective is to build a strong foundation and intuition, with an emphasis on retrieving and transforming data without making mistakes or suffering immensely. SQL skills are in very high demand, as a core skill for data scientists. Learning SQL will also help you think logically about the structure of data sets. The workshop is online, with plenty of interactivity and opportunities for one-on-one support from the instructor, who has a deep love-hate relationship with SQL, and is passionate about making it easier and more fun for everyone. It comes with a big detailed textbook, with lots of practice exercises. After the workshop, you're invited to contact the instructor for follow up questions, as you continue practicing.

This course is suitable for beginners, with no prior programming experience. However, for those with a thirst for adrenaline, parts of it will prove challenging, even for experienced non-SQL programmers. For those experienced programmers, there is around two extra days worth of more advanced material for you to burn through in your own time.

Day 1 starts with a short introduction to database technologies, covering the basic structure of a database and the usefulness of the SQL relational database model in general. We learn about SQL tables, relationships between tables, and primary/foreign key pairs. We then connect to a local or remote SQL database, and dive into coding, beginning with easy examples and the most useful data manipulation queries. After a break, we learn more of the fundamentals: search conditions, subqueries, and joining tables. The day ends with many exercises for practice and revision.

Day 2 Have you heard this old adage? "Give a person a fish, and they eat for a day, but teach them to fish, and they eat for a lifetime". We start by learning how to read and interpret SQL documentation, so you can fish for a lifetime. Then, we learn all about filtering and aggregating on grouped data, as well as applying useful built-in functions. The queries we can write become increasingly complex, so it's time to learn some skills for iterative development: we will use the SQL data definition language to create our own test tables, allowing us to design our own databases, and to use them to test complicated queries. The day ends with many more exercises, that build on and extend what we've learned.

Software and set up:
• The software is free to access online. An ‘intro/set-up’ email will be sent to you with access details.
• It is recommended that you use a computer to which you have administrator rights, since there can be difficulties setting up the software on a work computer.
• If you sign up close to the registration deadline you will need to set up the software quickly.