This was definitely a tough week, very theory-heavy, but it also included a relatively gentle introduction into SQL. I admit that at first I did not believe Joshua Mostafa's assertion that SQL is easy to comprehend, but after several lessons I realized I was able comprehend the most fundamental SQL rules of query construction and of database manipulation commands. SQL actually makes sense.
The different data types are interesting and a useful concept. I had some difficulties with understanding some of the numerical data types. The difficulty was rather in imagining the practical use for some of the features. It made me think about what kind of data I use, and how I enter them. I also found out the rational behind some conventions of data entry which I followed and took for granted. So many times I was told that a certain field can't be longer than 255 characters and it often made me wonder why, now I can guess that it may be because the given column requires char, varchar or tinytext data types. Even if it could be a tinyint, as well.
The normal forms still puzzle me. I may get better understanding of table normalization by looking at actually examples and trying to understand the relationships and changes as data are entered, how they are retrieved, and how they may have been manipulated in between.
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