Our Db2 for i team in IBM Technology Services has touted the advantages of using SQL for many years at conferences and user-group meetings. Recently, the following headline in my newsfeed caught my attention with an SQL advantage that has not been directly touted in the past: Money
Python is the most-loved language, but
SQL helps make More Money
While the
Python part of this headline is not as applicable to IBM i developers, the SQL portion
is definitely applicable to programmers in the IBM i world.
Our team has pointed
out for years that one reason to use SQL is that it is the de facto
industry standard. Indirectly, this reason does have some monetary benefits. The linked article states that SQL is a leading desirable skill. Thus, using
SQL with Db2 for i improves your marketability in the IT world if you ever
chose to leave the greatest platform and database in the world. You also don’t
necessarily need to leave your current position to cash in on your SQL skills.
Developers that add new skills to their toolset make themselves more valuable
to their company which in turn makes it easier for a company to reward that
added value with a salary increase.
SQL also
provides a monetary benefit to your company because it helps IT deliver on
business requirements faster. Data-centric programming with SQL enables
developers to focus their efforts on delivering business logic and relieves
them from the responsibilities of implementing relational data processing. The
result is a reduction in the amount of code that developers have to write and
maintain as they rely more on the Db2 engine to take care of the implementation
details. The SQL Rollup and Sequence features are good examples of this ability
to deliver more with less code. The Rollup support allows a report to return multiple levels of
aggregation (Country and Country & Region) with a single SQL statement.
Similarly, a Sequence object enables you to hand over ID or
key generation logic over to Db2 for i.
While there are
other advantages to using SQL, hopefully the monetary advantages for you and
your company are apparent. Let me know if your company needs help reaping this
benefit of SQL – the Db2 for i team in Technology Services is here to help.
