1. Course wrap-up
As they say, all good things must come to an end. And, unfortunately, that is the case for this journey that we have taken through the creation of PostgreSQL databases. Before we part, let's quickly review where we have been.
2. Course content
In Chapter 1, you were introduced to the fundamental objects in a PostgreSQL database including the database, table, and schema.
Remember when data types in PostgreSQL were new to us. Seems like a long time ago doesn't it? Well, we did that in Chapter 2 covering text, numeric, boolean and temporal types.
Chapter 3 covered database normalization which is probably the most difficult subject that we covered in this course. Normalization allows us to design databases that maintain data integrity and reduce the redundancy of data in our databases using a 3 step process.
With all of the effort put into properly designing a database, we finished up by stressing the importance of access control for your PostgreSQL database in Chapter 4.
3. Next steps
We really just scratched the surface on each of these topics. If you want to go further, some possible avenues are exploring other database objects available in PostgreSQL such as views and functions.
While we covered many of the most common data types, there is more to know on this topic. PostgreSQL allows for the representation of geometric and array data in columns as well.
It is possible to go further with normalizing your databases. Read up on 4th Normal Form to learn more. However, you should know that 3rd Normal Form is usually sufficient.
Access control is a layered subject and very complex access arrangements can be enabled for your databases. This is also an area that you may be interested in exploring further.
4. Congratulations!
You really did a tremendous job in reaching this point. I enjoyed leading you on this adventure through Creating PostgreSQL databases. Thank you for sticking with the course and I hope you found the information that we covered valuable. I wish you continued success.