MySQL Wrap-Up - Node Demo App & Triggers

Whoa, totally didn’t intend to finish up the MySQL class in less than a week! I guess I’m really impatient to get through my learning list.

Node / Express / MySQL Demo App

Today we finished up with the demo app which I’ve stored in this GitHub repo. It was pretty much a repeat of the demo exercises we did yesterday. I coded ahead of the videos instead of doing the code-along and was glad to see I can still make an Express app from memory!

The conclusion of this section left a few things wanting. We didn’t learn how to create a database or create tables, etc. from the app at all, and didn’t really go into many real-world applications of using MySQL in an app. But oh well, there are other resources out there. I started with this video which answered some of those questions.

Database Triggers

There was a section added to the course about database triggers. Again, I feel like we only scratched the surface but it’s good to know how to validate data on the db side. I added the notes from this to my MySQL Quick Reference gist.

Final Thoughts On The Course

Overall, really good—I know a lot more now about MySQL than I did a week ago. Questionable how well I’d be able to start applying the information in real-world scenarios. There are other learning/practicing resources out there though, like this set of exercises which I started on after finishing the course. I already learned a few new things!

But all of this said and done, I’m not sure I can recognize the differences between MySQL and PostgreSQL just yet. And having gone through the pain of getting Postgres installed & working on my machine (we used Cloud9 for the course, so no local installation), realistically I’ll just use that for whatever I build to test out these relational database skills!

The other big component I think we were missing was about how to actually structure databases. It’s like we got the tools to build the house, but no blueprints—not even a mention that one should start with blueprints. So that part I will have to try and pick up somewhere else!

Other Stuff

Today someone told me about Code Retreat…one day event filled with pair programming challenges, all over the globe. Looking forward to that next winter!

Up Next

Debating between jumping into a new project or doing another course first (I already registered). And there’s still CS50 to finish.