Hey, what's up, Gurus?
Welcome to today's lesson on programming,
and specifically, the programming background that you need
in order to pass the DP-203.
So in the lesson,
we are going to be focusing on a few things.
First, programming. Hey, it's in the title.
And you'll see code snippets as we move through the course,
such as the one in orange here.
Now this code snippet is very important.
It's actually the code snippet to make a smiley face.
So not going to be important for the DP-203,
but we're going to be talking about
what you do need to know.
Along those lines, we are only focusing on the DP-203
and what you really need to know,
not necessarily what you need to know
to be a competent data engineer,
but what you need to know to pass the DP-203.
So keep in mind those distinctions.
We're not going to be diving far into the code,
just enough for you to be able
to understand what you need to pass.
For the Microsoft exam, Microsoft actually states,
"A candidate for this exam must have strong knowledge
"of data processing languages,
"such as SQL, Python, or Scala,
"and they need to understand parallel processing
"and data architecture patterns."
So what does that mean really?
How much do I actually need to know
to get through the DP-203?
So the first thing that you need to keep in mind,
you do not need to be an expert in programming
for all of these different languages.
What you need to be able to do is see a piece of code,
and recognize generally what's going on.
I'll say this about a hundred times in this course,
but please don't memorize code.
You are not going to have to recite code from memory
on the DP-203.
What you will need to do though,
and this is true for any Microsoft exam,
you'll need to be able to look at pieces of code
and say, hey, I know what that is.
Oh, wait. That looks like it's out of order.
Those are the kinds of things that you need to do.
Be able to recognize code and recognize what might be wrong
with the code that you're reading.
So I would recommend
if you don't have a background in programming,
taking a few basic courses first.
The first one that I would recommend
is taking a look at
Database Administration and SQL Language Basics
and SQL Deep Dive.
Hey, I recognize that guy.
So Landon actually built our SQL Deep Dive course,
and it is a fantastic entry into SQL
if you really don't understand all that much about it.
I would also take a look at Python,
specifically the Introduction to Python Scripting course.
Again, this is going to give you
just a little bit of background in Python
so that you could start to recognize code structure
and start to see what may or may not be happening,
as we move through the course with Python scripts.
What if I can't find those courses?
Courses change from time to time,
and what I would recommend if you can't find those courses,
just hop on and do a quick search
for SQL or Python in A Cloud Guru and I bet you,
you will come up with quite a few different resources.
Pick one of the basics.
Again, you don't need to understand everything there is.
You just need to understand the basics of the syntax,
and how the code is actually being structured
so that you can kind of start to look through
as we talk about data engineering concepts,
and understand what's going on.
Lastly, you will notice
that we did not focus on Scala yet.
I actually wouldn't recommend focusing on Scala.
I think the bulk of what you need to know
is going to be in SQL and Python.
And I think if you understand the basic syntax
of those 2 different languages,
you should be just fine for the DP-203.
However, that also follows true for Scala.
If you decided you wanted to do SQL and Scala,
hey, that'd be just fine too.
Just pick 2 of those, I definitely recommend SQL,
and then pick either Python or Scala
and I think you'll be good to go.
So, in summary,
yes, you do need some programming background,
especially in Python or Scala, and SQL.
No, you don't need to be a master of the code.
Grab a couple of those quick review courses
to understand the basics. That's all you need.
And keep in mind,
hey, you're going to need this for your career too.
Python, SQL, PowerShell,
these are staples for a data engineer.
If you don't understand how to do those things,
you're going to find it hard to get a job
and pass those entrance exams,
and you're probably going to find it hard
to actually do data engineering at scale.
So, don't just focus on the 203.
You're also going to need to know this for your career.
But we, in this course, we'll be focusing on the 203.
I hope this has been helpful.
I will see you in the next section
where we start talking about data engineering
from the 20,000 foot view.
I'll see you there.