What was it like to learn PL/SQL?

[ErikSchierboom]

We’ve recently started a project to find the best way to design our tracks, in order to optimize the learning experience of students.

As a first step, we’ll be examining the ways in which languages are unique and the ways in which they are similar. For this, we’d really like to use the knowledge of everyone involved in the Exercism community (students, mentors, maintainers) to answer the following questions:

1. How was your experience learning PL/SQL? What was helpful while learning PL/SQL? What did you struggle with? How did you tackle problems?
2. In what ways did PL/SQL differ from other languages you knew at the time? What was hard to learn? What did you have to unlearn? What syntax did you have to remap? What concepts carried over nicely?

Could you spare 5 minutes to help us by answering these questions? It would greatly help us improve the experience students have learning PL/SQL :)

Note: this issue is not meant as a discussion, just as a place for people to post their own, personal experiences.

Want to keep your thoughts private but still help? Feel free to email me at erik@exercism.io

Thank you!

[amadensor]

I opened the track, found it to be Oracle specific and then left the track, since I was hoping for something more flexible.

[iHiD]

@amadensor Thanks. As an FYI (for your googling needs) PL/SQL is Oracle's SQL programming language. I'd also love a normal SQL track, although I'm not sure if it's Turing complete and therefore would be admissible. Someone with more knowledge could guide us!

[chezwicker]

Yes, SQL is Turing complete, see e.g. https://www.quora.com/Is-SQL-a-Turing-complete-language <https://www.quora.com/Is-SQL-a-Turing-complete-language>. Doesn't mean it makes any sense implementing the normal track examples in SQL, though ;-)

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On 17 Oct 2019, at 14:31, Jeremy Walker ***@***.***> wrote: @amadensor <https://github.com/amadensor> Thanks. As an FYI (for your googling needs) PL/SQL is Oracle's SQL programming language. I'd also love a normal SQL track, although I'm not sure if it's Turing complete and therefore would be admissible. Someone with more knowledge could guide us! — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#51?email_source=notifications&email_token=ACR2I4GIMH2R5DIKDGN5T5DQPBLKVA5CNFSM4I5CDO42YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOEBP5QSA#issuecomment-543152200>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACR2I4AEYOMBTJA56R65DCLQPBLKVANCNFSM4I5CDO4Q>.

[workingjubilee]

While I acknowledge that PL/SQL is Oracle's language, it is also true that PL/SQL contributed to a language standard known as SQL/PSM, which could briefly be summarized as "PL/SQL with the serial numbers filed off", which is embedded in MySQL, I believe, and Postgres implements a close variant of PL/SQL called PL/pgSQL. It doesn't seem overly audacious to suggest considering those as alternatives, because unless Oracle wants to directly sponsor and make things easier for you, it's not surprising that the current signup friction is a bit much when I could be playing around in my own little sandbox with a local Postgres instance instead. I already have one of those installed.

[ErikSchierboom]

We're closing this issue as it was part of our research for the v3 version of Exercism which has just been released.

Thanks everyone for chipping in! It has been greatly appreciated.