Learn Web3 in 100 Days - Day 9: SQL
Let’s explore deeper into SQL.
Table of Contents
What is SQL
Web3 Database
Data
Web2 vs. Web3
Front-end + Spectrum = Web3
Web3 Database
In Conclusion
What is SQL
SQL or Structured Query Language is a programming language to manage relational databases and perform operations with data. Similar to excel spreadsheets, SQL is a way to manipulate databases through programming or execution commands.
SQL is fairly simple. Users just need to input a command and request the machine to output data from the database.
The simple line of code you need to know is:
SELECT * FROM Customers
It translates to human language as selecting all (* means) data from (FROM) the column name Customers (Customers).
You can learn the rest here.
Web3 Database
Here is where things set apart from Web2 and Web3 significantly. You may constantly hear someone referring like these:
Web1: read
Web2: read, write
Web3: read, write, own
So why do people refer to those? The key is who controls data.
Data
In the programming world, data is the blood of the program. Without data, a program acts like a zombie.
In Web2, corporations are built to possess large amounts of data and store it in their possession.
More specifically, users are providing all kinds of data corporations can exploit which include your privacy. You have no control over the data that is being used. Whether it is to create an algorithm to analyze your behavior or many unknown projects corporations can do.
Users leave the dust without any information about where their data is being used and the result of such data contribution is voluntary or involuntary. That is a price to pay when using their products and services. Whether you like it or not.
Web2 vs. Web3
From Web2, when you visit a website, you load everything that is owned by one company. In Web3, you visit a website where User Interface and Data Access are located in separate locations and only you can access that data through a specific way to verify you as only a person that can access your own data.
Front-end + Spectrum = Web3
Front-end is the program to provide how websites structure and interact with internet servers. Back-end provides programs that offer access to exclusive databases from the corporations and provide results that may or may not show to users. For example, in Meta (Facebook), the like number count is generated through a back-end program. In Web3, no one controls data and there is no database but a blockchain that publishes data in public. You do not program to access exclusive databases, rather you are using a protocol and interacting with it. Web3 Dev Nader refers to the Web3 stack. You will have a variety of tools to choose to build your Web3 depending on the types of blockchain you choose from and based on how decentralized, scalable, and secure you want your project to become.
Web3 Database
When it comes to databases, it becomes centralized and even claimed to be decentralized. Distributed databases are closed to decentralization without possession of data. There will be a whole another discussion on databases. However, many projects are working to approach a decentralized database as possible while offering database security of a database.
In Conclusion
Now you have learned SQL and Web3. You can continue learning coding from different perspectives!
Keep learning.
