Sometimes you need to dive in an existing data set that you know very little about. Let’s say we’ve been lucky to have had a high level description of the business case covered by a database, and then access to it. Our next step is figuring out data organisation, content and quality. Our tool box: the world’s most advanced open source database, PostgreSQL, and its Structured Query Language, SQL.
In our previous article Aggregating NBA data, PostgreSQL vs MongoDB we spent time comparing the pretty new MongoDB Aggregation Framework with the decades old SQL aggregates. Today, let’s showcase more of those SQL aggregates, producing a nice histogram right from our SQL console.
When reading the article Crunching 30 Years of NBA Data with MongoDB Aggregation I coulnd’t help but think that we’ve been enjoying aggregates in SQL for 3 or 4 decades already. When using PostgreSQL it’s even easy to actually add your own aggregates given the SQL command create aggregate.
