Is SQL, or Structured Query Language, a programming language? That’s a great question! A question that many answer with emphasis: “No, SQL is not a programming language!” There are some who answer yes; and they usually qualify that answer with something like: “SQL is a programming language designed to communicate with relational databases.”

It strikes me that those saying “yes” are saying that SQL is only a collection of interface methods to read from and write to a database engine. Those saying SQL is not a programming language often qualify that a programming language must have conditional logic and iterative structures, which don’t exist in SQL.

There’s a third group that are fence sitters. They decline to say whether SQL is a programming language, but they also say individuals who only write SQL aren’t programmers. That’s a bit harsh from my perspective.

Before …

While I blogged about how to setup Node.js and MySQL almost two years ago, it was interesting when a student ran into a problem. The student said they’d configured the environment but were unable to use Node.js to access MySQL.

The error is caused by this import statement:

const mysql = require('mysql') 

The student got the following error, which simply says that they hadn’t installed the Node.js package for MySQL driver.

internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:638
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module 'mysql'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:636:15)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:562:25)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:692:17)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:25:18)
    at Object. (/home/student/Data/cit325/oracle-s/lib/Oracle12cPLSQLCode/Introduction/query.js:4:15)
    at Module._compile …

A student question: Does JavaScript make context switching for web-based applications obsolete? Wow! I asked what that meant. He said, it means JavaScript replaces all other server-side programming languages, like PHP, C#, or Python. I asked the student why he believed that. His answer was that’s what two interviewing managers told him.

I thought it would be interesting to put the idea to a test. Below is a Node.js script that acts as a utility that queries the MySQL database with substitution variables in query. It also returns a standard out (stdout) stream of the MySQL query’s results. It also supports three flag and value pairs as arguments, and optionally writes the results of the MySQL query to a log file while still returning result as the stdout value. All errors are written to the standard error (stderr) stream.

The Node.js solution is completely portable between Windows …

Sometimes, you just half to chuckle. A couple folks felt that I didn’t give enough information in my post showing how to configure a small Node.js application that could access a MySQL database. Specifically, they wanted me to explain the following:

1. Configure your Express.js and MySQL development in a single Node.js application.
2. How to convert the list of RowDataPacket objects as elements of data, which is really just simple JavaScript knowledge.
3. How to bind variables into the query.

Like the other blog post, this one assumes you’ve performed a global install of Node.js on a Linux server. If you’re unfamiliar with how to perform a global Node.js installation, I cover how to do it in this …

These are my notes for creating a small Node.js application that queries a MySQL database. The post will show you how to:

1. Configure your Node.js development directory.
2. Build a small application to test a MySQL connection.
3. Build a small application that connects to the MySQL database and queries data.

This blog post assumes you’ve performed a global install of Node.js on a Linux server. If you’re unfamiliar with how to perform a global Node.js installation, I cover how to do it in this earlier blog post.

Before you write the Node.js applicaiton, you need to setup a db developer directory. Then, create a node_modules symbolic link to the /usr/local/lib/node_modules directory in the db directory. You can use the following command …

Dear MySQL users,

MySQL Connector/Node.js is a new Node.js driver for use with the X
DevAPI. This release, v8.0.19, is a maintenance release of the
MySQL Connector/Node.js 8.0 series.

The X DevAPI enables application developers to write code that combines
the strengths of the relational and document models using a modern,
NoSQL-like syntax that does not assume previous experience writing
traditional SQL.

MySQL Connector/Node.js can be downloaded through npm (see
https://www.npmjs.com/package/@mysql/xdevapi for details) or from
https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/nodejs/.

To learn more about how to write applications using the X DevAPI, see
…

Introduction

What is the X-DevApi? From insidemysql.com there is a definition of the X-DevAPI and its features in the following paragraphs:

The X DevAPI is the common client-side API used by all connectors to abstract the details of the X Protocol. It specifies the common set of CRUD-style functions/methods used by all the official connectors to work with both document store collections and relational tables, a common expression language to establish query properties such as criteria, projections, aliases, and a standard set of additional database management features for handling things like transactions, indexes, etc.

The fact that most of these features share the same format and API between connectors, makes the X DevAPI a perfect fit for modern polyglot development environments such as microservices, and the fact that they are based on a …

As you may have heard, MySQL 8.0 is now officially GA, and it comes with a bunch of additional goodies. Among those is the brand new Connector/Node.js, which is the official MySQL driver for Node.js and, currently, the only one with support for the latest server versions and features (such as the MySQL document store).

Here’s a rundown of what’s available:

• Out-of-the box support for MySQL 8.0
• Document-store API as a first-class citizen
• TLS/SSL and SHA256 authentication
• Fluent API with support for flexible parameters
• Semantic methods to encode common CRUD operations
• Modern Node.js asynchronous interface based on Promises
• Abstractions for common database development tasks
• Transactions, savepoints and row locking

MySQL 8.0

…

The website or mobile app is the storefront for participating in the modern digital era. It’s your portal for inviting users to come and survey your products and services. Much attention focuses on front-end development; this is where the HMTL5, CSS, and JavaScript are coded to develop the landing page that everyone sees when they visit your site.

But the real magic happens on the backend. This is the ecosystem that really powers your website. One writer has articulated this point very nicely as follows:

The technology and programming that “power” a site—what your end user doesn’t see but what makes the site run—is called the back end. Consisting of the server, the database, and the server-side applications, it’s the behind-the-scenes functionality—the brain of a site. …

Well, currently I am into the third week of mongodb node course "M101JS: MongoDB for Node.js Developers" and I am pretty enjoying it.

Lots of personal learning into node and mongodb.

The third week subject of "Patterns, Case Studies & Tradeoffs" is really interesting.

Here is a list of topics, I learned about:
- Mongodb rich documents concept.
- Mongodb schema use cases.
- Mongodb one:one, one:many, many:many use cases.
- How to select schema based on the usage like whether you want max performance
  or it may be a tradeoff.

One important point, I learned during the course is:
"While relational databases usually go for the normalised 3rd form so that data usage is agnostic to application, but mongodb schema arrangement is very closely related to application usage and varies accordingly."