We had another guest speaker come in today to talk to us about Databases: Joel Larson. After introducing himself, Joel let us know that, while he does teach a class on databases and all of their specifics, he would only be teaching us the basics in order to help us better understand the web and the role that databases play on it.
We started by going over what Joel called the 'Information Continuum', which basically boils down to the process where data from a database leads to information, which then gives the analyzer knowledge on the information so that wisdom can be gained from it; usually in the form of predictions.
Next we talked about different types of data. We started with unstructured, which would be flat/random text, images, videos, etc. Then there's semi-structured data like webpages, headings, sections, etc. Finally there are structured forms of data, which are things like databases.
This led to our discussion about how databases are used in life, Joel used an example of students and their ID's and roles in school. Each piece of data was linked in a certain way in a table. In these data tables that make up a database, the rows are relations, meaning that everything in a row relates to each other. Everything in the columns are fields, which are descriptors for what kind of data it is, like integers, strings, etc.
We ended the lecture with talk about how retailers used databases to analyze sale info, which changed the basic strategies that were used to increase sales, changing how retail worked forever!
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