Rainy Sundays

Rich Gwilliam's digital shed

SQL

Malleable memory banks

Data sql-database-generic SQL Database (Generic) image/svg+xml Amido Limited Richard Slater

SQL (Sequenced Query Language) is the language used by databases to understand what, specifically, you're asking them for. There are a lot of flavours, and I'm familiar with a few.

SQL seems to be feared as a concept by a lot of developers and, while it's got some subtleties, I don't think it warrants it. It's one of the few aspects of a Computer Science BSc circa 2006 that is still paying dividends, though.

I've been using it for nearly twenty years now, in one form or another, mostly MySQL. That includes database schema design, indexing, query structuring, stored functions, optimization... the works.

Well. Quite a large proportion of the works.

I've been using SQL since May 2012 (13 years).

Engagements using SQL

Senior PHP Developer

ASL Holdings Ltd

May 2012 - Feb 2020

For ASL I developed several long-lived and high volume telemetry systems. These processed large amounts of data and delivered it for rendering in charts and tables on a daily basis.

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Photoshop
  • Javascript
  • Jquery
  • API development
  • SQL
  • BASH
  • Linux
  • DataTables
  • LAMP Stack Admin
  • FTP
  • Git
  • CICD
  • Technical writing

Contract Senior Full-stack Developer

Eido Healthcare

Feb 2024 - Jun 2024

Successful resurrection of a mothballed legacy Craft CMS project without documentation or input from the original developer; planning and provisioning of AWS infrastructure to support the software based on Docker images.

  • PHP
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • SQL
  • Git
  • NPM
  • Javascript
  • Craft CMS
  • Linux
  • LAMP Stack Admin
  • Amazon EC2
  • AWS Suite
  • Laravel
  • Docker
  • BASH
  • Figma
  • Project planning
  • Ops Development
  • High capacity systems
  • Apache
  • Postman
  • API development
  • Technical writing

Contract Senior Full-stack Developer

STS Commercial

Feb 2025 - Aug 2025

Development of high-precision bespoke analytics and diagnostic modules on a Laravel base to surface opportunities and weaknesses in extremely high-volume, fast moving Fintech data and fine-tune performance for emerging markets. Innovative and intuitive modelling of data, completely revolutionizing how stakeholders analyse performance.

  • Laravel
  • Javascript
  • CSS
  • HTML
  • PHP
  • API development
  • Vue
  • Database Migrations
  • Linux
  • Git
  • Docker
  • SQL
  • Figma
  • LAMP Stack Admin
  • BASH
  • NPM
  • NodeJS
  • Postman
  • High capacity systems
  • Ops Development
  • Jira
  • MAMP stack admin
  • Technical writing

Contract Senior Full-stack Developer

Polygon

Jul 2024 - Nov 2024

Maintenance and upgrade of a legacy native PHP 5.6 API with massive data sets to provide new functionality for clients both inside and outside the company.

  • PHP
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Javascript
  • API development
  • Postman
  • Vue
  • Apache
  • Database Migrations
  • Agile
  • Git
  • SQL
  • NPM
  • Jira
  • CICD