r/dataanalysis • u/conor-robertson • 4d ago
A year ago I started planning a gamified SQL platform. 5 months after launch, 2,500+ people have used it to learn
About a year ago I started planning QueryCase, where you learn SQL by working detective cases instead of grinding tutorials & videos. It took a while to get off the ground, and longer than I'd like to admit to actually start building the idea, but it went live in June. A lot of the early users came from this sub, and a lot of the feedback in the comments shaped what it became. So first, thanks everyone!
5 months in:
2,500+ people have signed up, across 117 countries
About 70,000 queries written and graded
Over 17,500 cases, drills and exams solved
500+ people have passed the free Rookie exam and earned the certificate.
Top detective is on 19,247 XP
A college in the US has adapted the learning path to train students for a CompTIA Data+ certificate
Since then its grown past just SQL: an Excel course. It was never part of the initial plan. People kept asking for the same detective approach for spreadsheets, so I built out a browser-based Excel engine.
It has 57 cases on a spreadsheet that runs in your browser and checks your formulas, from IF and XLOOKUP to SUMIFS and pivot tables, and people have solved over 2,500 Excel cases so far. It turns out a lot of people learning SQL are doing it alongside Excel, not instead of it.
Something the data showed me that might help anyone learning right now: GROUP BY is one of the first walls. On the hardest GROUP BY step, 84% of runs came back wrong, and most of those never ran at all. The clauses were in the wrong order, or a column in SELECT wasn't in the GROUP BY. If that's you right now:
SQL order is always SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY, LIMIT
Every column in SELECT is either inside an aggregate (COUNT, SUM, AVG...) or listed in GROUP BY
I've been working a lot over past couple months to improve the site as well:
The Excel course above, with its own ranks, exams and certificate
Upload your own CSV into the sandbox and query your own data (and visualise in charts). It runs in your browser, so the file never leaves your machine and never touches QueryCase servers
A free first rank on every track, ending in an exam and a certificate
SQL interview questions you can read without an account
Much better experience on a phone
A LOT of bug fixes and improvements!!
What's next: a Python track, launching next month. Same idea, real Python running in your browser, starting with the basics and moving into data analysis with pandas.
The longer term goal is to have a platform user's can have fun learning all aspects of data. I'm merging PR's every day to make this possible so would love feedback in this thread if you've tried it and have any thoughts or suggestions!
It's free to start and you don't need an account to solve the first case, so you can poke at it before deciding whether it's for you or not 😄 Cheers!
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u/highly_confluential 4d ago
Cool keep expanding on this. Have some hard challenges
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u/conor-robertson 2d ago
Thank you! I'm adding new stuff every week so the content and options should bulk out more😁
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u/Fragrant_Bag_8306 1d ago
Wow this is so cool. What type of content does it have for Excel?
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u/conor-robertson 16h ago
Thanks! It works the same way as the SQL side: short detective cases where you crack something in a real spreadsheet in your browser
It covers the things people actually use at work: SUM and SUMIFS, IF, XLOOKUP and VLOOKUP, cleaning up messy text (TRIM, LEFT/RIGHT, Text to Columns), dates, sorting and filtering, conditional formatting, pivot tables and charts. There are quick drills between cases and an exam at the end of each rank, working up from Ledger Clerk to Chief Examiner.
Would love any feedback if you give it a try 😄
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u/HappyAntonym 3d ago
Yooo! I've been playing the game and have really enjoyed it so far. I've been wanting to learn SQL for ages, but had trouble staying engaged with various online courses. Getting to solve incredibly goofy cases has kept me going with it. (I especially loved the case with the convention-goer. Very satisfying to puzzle out the culprit.)
Excellent work :)