Real cases
A case · you decide
Sorel and Capp find the top two
Capp & Sorel — a 16-year-old building a leaderboard page for a coding club
The scores table has Ana 70, Ben 95, Cy 88, Di 60. The query is: SELECT name FROM scores ORDER BY score DESC LIMIT 2.
Sorel sorts: DESC puts the highest score first.
Capp takes the first two of those.
What does the query return?
Sort first, then take. The order of the clauses is not the order they run in.
Who made this?
“In reality, every technology reflects decisions made by designers, companies, and communities, and carries the values and power of those choices.”
- Who benefits from this technology?
- Whose needs are ignored?
A case · you decide
Filo and Sole count the cities
Sole & Filo — a 17-year-old answering a club question about where members live
The members table: Ana 15 Austin, Ben 17 Dallas, Cy 16 Austin, Di 18 Dallas, Ed 16 Houston. The query: SELECT DISTINCT city FROM members WHERE age >= 16.
Filo filters first: only the rows where age is 16 or more go on.
Sole folds repeats: each city that is left appears once.
How many rows does the query return?
Read a query clause by clause, in the order it really runs.
Who made this?
“In reality, every technology reflects decisions made by designers, companies, and communities, and carries the values and power of those choices.”
- Who benefits from this technology?
- Whose needs are ignored?