Purpose

Backend baby! We’re in it! … Backend web development. We’re talking about web development…

Backend web development revolves around data. In service of that data the backend developer builds and maintains a website’s server, applications, and databases. These ultimately enable the user-facing frontend of things to work.

I want to focus on one of those three main backend components - databases.

Databases

Database - A structured set of data held in a computer, especially one that is accessible in various ways.

The concept of a database sounds simple but there’s one word in that definition that makes all the difference. Structured. Digital databases are uniquely designed to store data in a way that minimizes storage space and retrieval time. A database isn’t just a text file with some super long strings in it. Databases are complex systems with multiple varieties.

Database Management Systems (DBMS)

The DBMS determines how data are stored and retrieved. It must address problems such as security, accuracy, consistency among different records, response time, and memory requirements.

We’ve discussed the idea of a database but now we’re going to talk about the real deal - database management systems. There are four main types of DBMSs but I won’t be going into that much detail here. (Here is a succinct article where you can read up on them.) I’ll be talking about a specific DBMS - PostgreSQL.

DBMSs

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL (pronounced like the first half of “post office” and the second half of “digress”) as explained by their own website - is a powerful, open source object-relational database system that uses and extends the SQL language combined with many features that safely store and scale the most complicated data workloads. The origins of PostgreSQL date back to 1986 as part of the POSTGRES project at the University of California at Berkeley and has more than 30 years of active development on the core platform.[1]

PostgresForMac

Conclusion

Now that we’re familiar with databases and PostgreSQL the next post will dive into manipulating databases with SQL. Welcome to Postgres!