SQL Police Department

Learning and science

sql learning game

SHOW HN2020

550points
86comments
#35of 3,028 in 2020
Top 2%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

13 positive, 16 neutral or asking, 4 mixed, 19 critical, out of 52 comments about the project. Thread score -0.03.

Execution: 0 for, 5 againstIdea: 4 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 3 againstDocs: 0 for, 4 againstPricing: 1 for, 3 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Fun and engaging way to learn SQL

    From 4 comments
  • Good for learning and muscle memory

    From 2 comments
    • This makes a lot of sense, actually. Definitely great for learning. You could do it the way Duolingo does it - on desktop, it allows for "Hard Mode", where it lets you type the…
      geddy on HN
    • Yes! Part of learning a language, for me, is gaining muscle memory with my fingers and having to use a mouse is a turn off. Very cool site otherwise!
      randlet on HN

Objections

  • Lost progress on back button or refresh

    From 2 comments
    • Worth considering capturing the keyboard input. I instinctively hit "delete" partway through to delete something I had clicked on and it took me back to HN and I lost my progress.
      mason55 on HN
    • This is a cool idea but if you accidentally hit the back button or refresh it loses all your progress with no obvious way to skip ahead. Frustrating.
      MattRix on HN
  • Clicking buttons instead of typing SQL

    From 2 comments
    • Nice concept but I really hate clicking on the buttons to form my statements... Is it possible to allow typing? Also, not ending my statement with a semicolon feels incomplete.
      oefrha on HN
    • I agree with this. I would much prefer if there was a freeform query mode, where I could just type the queries without the buttons or hints.
      sonofaplum on HN
  • Sample data may contain real personal email addresses

    From 3 comments
    • Are the names and email addresses in the sample data real? They seem auto generated but the domains are real providers like Hotmail, Gmail, and Outlook.
      koolba on HN
    • It's kinda risky in my opinion. I just checked a few of the addresses (mostly the one's without any numbers at the end), some of them do actually belong to real people.
      as1mov on HN
    • I searched a few emails in some local copies of data breaches and found real results
      Drip33 on HN
  • Paid license unclear on content value

    From 3 comments
    • Perhaps I'm missing something but I can't seem to find what I get for my money, what concepts and commands are covered? How many "cases" are there?
      PUSH_AX on HN
    • Cool concept but the license seems kind of weird to me. 20 bucks for six months? Will anything change in that time? You might want to add a bit of info on what the license gets…
      MivLives on HN
    • I think it would be more compelling to see how much more material there is, or at least how much is planned, like a timeline or map. I'm a little hesitant to purchase it blind.
      faitswulff on HN

Requests

  • Keyboard or free-form typing input

    From 3 comments
    • Nice concept but I really hate clicking on the buttons to form my statements... Is it possible to allow typing? Also, not ending my statement with a semicolon feels incomplete.
      oefrha on HN
    • I agree with this. I would much prefer if there was a freeform query mode, where I could just type the queries without the buttons or hints.
      sonofaplum on HN
    • This makes a lot of sense, actually. Definitely great for learning. You could do it the way Duolingo does it - on desktop, it allows for "Hard Mode", where it lets you type the…
      geddy on HN
  • Capture backspace so it does not navigate back

    From 1 comment
    • Worth considering capturing the keyboard input. I instinctively hit "delete" partway through to delete something I had clicked on and it took me back to HN and I lost my progress.
      mason55 on HN
  • Show amount of content and roadmap before buying

    From 1 comment
    • I think it would be more compelling to see how much more material there is, or at least how much is planned, like a timeline or map. I'm a little hesitant to purchase it blind.
      faitswulff on HN
  • Support for horizontal mobile orientation

    From 1 comment
    • I like the interface, but why throw an error when a user has their mobile device in horizontal orientation?
      brianzelip on HN

Questions

  • How many cases are included

    From 2 comments
    • It's great! I would buy a licence but I don't know how many cases do you have altogether?
      aquir on HN
    • Perhaps I'm missing something but I can't seem to find what I get for my money, what concepts and commands are covered? How many "cases" are there?
      PUSH_AX on HN
  • Does it cover advanced topics like window functions

    From 1 comment
    • Is this for total beginners or does it also cover advanced features like window functions as well? If not, is there a similar tool for learning advanced SQL features?
      Omnipresent on HN

Alternatives named

  • SQL Murder Mystery

    From 1 comment
    • This reminds me of the SQL Murder Mystery: https://mystery.knightlab.com/
      ryannevius on HN
  • Khan Academy SQL course

    From 1 comment
    • This seems like a neat idea. Not sure about paid, though, in its current incarnation. There's a ton of similar things unpaid. Why would I pay for this over Khan Academy's…
      murgindrag on HN
  • pgexercises

    From 1 comment
    • I personally enjoyed https://pgexercises.com/ a lot. As much as I'm not an SQL expert by any means, I learned things most of my peers would find "too complex" while doing those…
      psYchotic on HN
  • SQLBolt

    From 1 comment
    • Here are some other SQL Learning resources I have collected in my note taking TiddlyWiki (mostly from HN itself). Interactive SQL Tutorials : ▪ Chartio Interactive PostgreSQL SQL…
      knight17 on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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