Lecture 1 of a 60-part series on learning databases from scratch. This lecture introduces the fundamental concept of data.
What is Data?
Welcome to the first lecture in our series on learning databases! Before we can talk about databases, we need to understand the most basic thing they store: data.
In simple terms, data is just a collection of facts. Think about yourself. What are some facts about you?
- Your name is a piece of data.
- Your age is a piece of data.
- Your height is a piece of data.
- Your eye color is a piece of data.
A shopping list is also data. A list of your friends’ phone numbers is data. It’s everywhere!
Organizing Data
Imagine you have a list of friends and their birthdays. You might write it down like this:
Friend: Sarah, Birthday: April 5
Friend: Naji, Birthday: September 22
Friend: Maria, Birthday: December 10This is a very simple, organized way to store information. We have a clear label (Friend, Birthday) and a value for each.
A database is just a tool that helps us store and organize data like this in a very efficient and reliable way, especially when we have a LOT of it.
Why Not Just Use a Text File?
For a short list, a text file is fine. But what if you had a list of one million friends? How would you quickly find a specific friend’s birthday? How would you find all friends whose birthday is in December? It would be very slow and difficult.
A database solves this problem. It’s designed to handle huge amounts of data and retrieve specific information almost instantly.
In the Next Lecture…
We’ll look at what a database actually is and introduce the most popular type of database, which we’ll be using for this entire series. Stay tuned!
