Comment by dust-jacket
15 hours ago
My advice is: don't write complicated SQL.
The best thing I learned about SQL is that it can do an awful lot of clever stuff but that the vast majority of the time you really don't need it. Learn the basics. Shrug the rest off.
This is the correct way. Much like any other kind of code, if you find yourself doing something "clever" it's time to think about whether you're really going down the right path.
What do you consider to be clever SQL?
You don't have to get very clever. Once you get beyond inner join it starts to stick out like a sore thumb that SQL isn't relational and that you should have chosen a relational engine instead. SQL shines when you have an ORM and need a reliable backing store, though. Tradeoffs, as always.