Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Perception vs. Reality

So this is interesting: In the Stack Overflow Annual User Survey, 62.2% of respondents claim they are "proficient" in SQL. This tops all the languages listed. This is perhaps not that surprising, but I had at the same time — subjectively — noticed an abundance of let's say clueless questions and suboptimal answers on SQL and RDBMS topics in the StackExchange network. Quite clearly SQL is somewhat different from algorithmic programming languages in that there is a gap between being familiar with the language and really understanding its effects.
Posted by Unknown at 15:55
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous14 January, 2011 06:39

    That's not a new thing, and it's not limited to IT. For example most of the Czechs state they are very good drivers ... which is easily displaced by a short observation.

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  2. Colin 't Hart14 January, 2011 11:16

    I've more than once heard a comment to the effect that they would rather have complex procedural code -- because they can understand that, than a declarative SQL version -- because that would be too difficult to understand.

    IMHO, anyone who is of this opinion is not proficient in SQL.

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