Where will our future senior developers come from now that we have GenAI?
That’s a valid question given the fear based reactions people have to vibe coding specifically and genai in general.
To answer that - I had a session with ChatGPT to design a curriculum to teach sql and database management using SQLite and dBeaver. Now I’m sure real courses in this already exist. This is just to demonstrate that with GenAI, your learning opportunities are vastly enhanced, not diminished in any way. It took 5 minutes to craft this prompt. I’m running it with Deep Research feature of ChatGPT using the o3 model. It’ll take 15min to a half hour to run.
I’ll present the results too.
You are an elite technical curriculum designer and data systems expert. Create a comprehensive, hands-on SQL learning program for technically literate users who do not already know SQL or data management.
The goal is to teach both data management fundamentals and practical SQL usage, using SQLite as the backend database engine and DBeaver as the GUI and query tool.
Deliverables:
1. Step-by-step setup instructions for both:
- Windows 10/11
- Linux (Ubuntu/Debian-based preferred)
- Install SQLite CLI + DBeaver
- Configure DBeaver to work with SQLite
2. Primer on How to Learn with AI:
- How to use an LLM like ChatGPT as a learning companion
- How to ask follow-up questions to clarify concepts
- How to get help debugging broken SQL or schema design
- How to use the AI to explain query results or optimize a slow query
3. Course structure (include all materials as Markdown or linked resources):
- Level 0: What is a database? What is a table? What is SQL? What problems does it solve?
- Level 1: Core SQL — SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, LIMIT, DISTINCT
- Level 2: Joins — INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, FULL OUTER, CROSS
- Level 3: GROUP BY, HAVING, aggregate functions (COUNT, SUM, AVG, etc.)
- Level 4: Data modification — INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
- Level 5: Schema design basics — CREATE TABLE, primary keys, foreign keys, normalization
- Level 6: Data import/export — working with CSV files, JSON, etc.
- Level 7: Indexes, performance tuning, and explain plans (where applicable to SQLite)
- Level 8: Real-world data modeling exercises (e.g., building a sales or inventory database)
4. Sample Data:
- Provide either CSVs or data generation scripts to populate each database
- Cover at least:
- A small e-commerce store (customers, orders, products)
- A university system (students, classes, grades)
- A healthcare clinic (patients, visits, medications)
5. Mini-projects with answer keys:
- 1-2 challenges per level that test understanding
- Include expected queries and explanation of answers
6. Appendix / Bonus Section:
- "How to Move from SQLite to Postgres or Snowflake"
- "How to Use DBeaver with Other RDBMSs"
- "What to Learn Next: Views, Stored Procedures, Transactions, and Beyond"
Style & Format:
- Use clear, professional language aimed at tech-literate users (developers, analysts, QA, sysadmins).
- Format output cleanly using Markdown with headings, code blocks, and bullet points.
- Write the course as if it were intended to prove that AI can teach real-world skills, not just generate trivia.
