On Thursday, we had Mark S. McDavid and a data science associate at Eastman come and give a talk on SQL, specifically Microsoft SQL Server. Eastman, like most companies, is quite reliant on data extraction and analysis for day to day operations, so SQL knowledge is pretty paramount!

Mark began with basic queries and database design, explaining how queries can be optimized for speed on large datasets. More complex statements were also discussed, such as joins, and the expressiveness of the SQL language was explored in depth.

The talk concluded with questions from the audience about security and best practices for dealing with databases - never run an untested SQL statement on a production server!