SQL in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Chapter 2. Foundational Concepts

SQL provides an easy, intuitive way to interact with a database. While the SQL standard does not define the concept of a “database,” it does define all the functions and concepts needed for a user to create, retrieve, update, and delete data. It is important to know the types of syntax in the ANSI/ISO SQL standard and the particular platform-specific syntax guidelines. This chapter will provide you with a grounding in those areas. For brevity, we will refer to the ANSI/ISO standard as simply “SQL” or “the SQL standard” in the remainder of this chapter.

Database Platforms Described in This Book

In this book, we will describe the SQL standard and the platform-specific implementations of several leading RDBMSs:

MySQL/MariaDB

MySQL is a popular open source DBMS that is known for its ease of use and good performance. It runs on numerous operating systems, including most Linux variants. To improve performance, it has a slimmer feature set than many other DBMSs. Since the purchase of Sun Microsystems by Oracle, the MySQL user base has been split into two factions: users of MySQL (maintained by Oracle) and MariaDB (from the MariaDB Foundation, whose head, Monty Widenius, was the original creator of MySQL). This book covers MySQL 8, now owned by Oracle, and the most popular MySQL fork, MariaDB 10.5. Their functionality is largely equivalent and compatible. Where they deviate most is in the storage engines they support, their compression and encryption ...