SQR for Not Yet Techies

Creating them. Adding data to them. Extracting data from them and structuring that data in useful ways. And, especially, distributing that data throughout the business, as necessary - that's SQR.

And not just any databases, but a special kind called relational databases.

You know that databases are basically lists of data. For instance, most non-retail businesses should maintain a list of their customers. However, they don’t want to know simply the names of their customers, but need to know many other related facts. Addresses, names of contacts, names of products bought, orders, prices paid etc.

However, if that customer called up about a problem with their current order, you couldn’t find that information on the index card. Index cards are just to small to hold the details of every order. Besides, the index card was probably kept in some central office. The sales order, invoices, shipping documents etc. were kept in the appropriate departments.

Therefore, flat databases have significant limits to their usefulness.

About 1970, an IBM scientist wrote a paper that basically created relational databases, which computers make possible.

Basically, relational databases link databases together. Our business can simply assign each one a customer number. This number is a column on the main database. This unique customer number can then be linked to databases of products, which can be linked to databases of individual orders.

Plus, write and print the necessary SQR reports.

Databases are very widely used throughout business and especially on the Internet, the hottest current area of the computer career field. PeopleSoft is hot. SQL is the most widely known and used database-related language, but Structured Query Report - SQR - is hot and up and coming, and combining it with SQL would help increase your chances for a job connected with databases.

That’s a lot of jobs now, and will be many more in the near future for SQR programmers, so it's a good computer career choice.

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