From the course: From Excel to SQL
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Spreadsheets vs. databases
- Now, I know you might want to jump right into SQL and start learning how to query a database. But before we do that it's helpful to take a moment to understand what a database is and how it's different from a spreadsheet. This way you can make the transition from something you're familiar with, like spreadsheets and Excel, to the next step of databases and SQL. So let's start with how they're the same. At their core, both databases and spreadsheets store collections of information. The differences come from how that data is stored and how you can manipulate it. So let's look at an example. When you open up a spreadsheet in Excel, you're presented with rows, columns, and cells like you see here and each cell can independently contain any kind of information, like a piece of text, a date, or a sum function. And you can change this around as often as you like. Now, let's switch gears and take a look at how a database…
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