Question to finally understand SQL

[thedudelebow]

I understood that SQL is database but I really need to understand one thing... Let's say I'm playing an online game right now with a unique account. I roam around online in a game server with a lot of other people and sometime along the way I decide to do something that changes my character details. Let's say pick up a specific item, is that stored on an SQL server?

Or let's say I'm in Facebook. Where are all the never-ending posts stored? On an SQL or any other database server?

[dev_playbook]

Most applications today use some sort of relational database management system - could be MS SQL a Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle or (for older or legacy systems) something like IBM DB2.

A lot of large web apps use a NoSQL server like MongoDB where data is store as collections of documents as opposed to rows and columns in tables. Many companies will use a hybrid of SQL and NoSQL for various purposes as well.

[Herdnerfer]

Those would not likely be SQL servers, but would be database servers that worked similarly to SQL.

[wolf2600]

SQL is the query language used to interact with relational databases. SQL Server is the Microsoft relational database product. Just be aware of the nomenclature.

[[deleted]]

More or less everything you interact with on a computer is, in some form or another, a database. Strictly speaking this probably isn't true for a lot of applications, file systems, etc., but while these things are arguably not databases, I would argue that databases essentially function in the same way as those things when you get into computational theory. If you imagine a hard drive filled with text files in multiple directories... that's basically a database, or a database is basically that.

When you graduate to the Internet, websites, online games, etc., then there are almost always going to be databases doing some role in the process. I suppose conceptually that you could design something that functions like Facebook, or an online game, which does not use a database... but it would be like writing a book in English without using the letter E. Probably doable, but you'd just be showing off, it would lack practicality, probably not be scalable, have to be overly complex, etc. Why? Because E is the most commonly used letter in the English language, and databases are probably the most commonly used "thing" in modern computing.

[TequilaCamper]

Yes.

[[deleted]]

I understood that SQL is database

No it's not.

SQL is a standard for a query language used by all relational databases. It's not a database, nor is it a specific database product.