Lesson Contribution - Description Update

[Talishask]

I'm a member of The Carpentries staff and I'm submitting this issue on behalf of another member of the community. In most cases, I won't be able to follow up or provide more details other than what I'm providing below.

I was reviewing this information and I notice something lacking from the lesson, "What is a relational database?" https://datacarpentry.org/sql-socialsci/01-relational-database/index.html

In the description of what a relational database is and why they are useful, it doesn't really get at how they work. The information that is presented about tables and primary keys is good, but it is incomplete.

When I was reviewing the material it made it sound like I would only be using SQL to pull specific data from one data table. However, what is missing is that in a database there are many different data tables and that is the reason why each table needs a primary key. Also lacking is that using SQL, you can pull data from several of the data tables inside the database and combine them into a new data table/dataset.

I feel this inclusion is important to understand not only how data bases work, but also who you can combine data from many tables to get the data that you want/need for your analysis. As I reviewed the various materials in the lesson, I noticed this was hinted at, but never clearly stated.

I also check the Episode of "Introducing Databases and SQL" in the "Data Management with SQL for Ecologist" (https://datacarpentry.org/sql-ecology-lesson/00-sql-introduction/index.html ) lesson and this information is missing there too.