everyone (not just programmers) should learn SQL, and I have many times! For me, programming languages are pretty different from bikes in that I have very little "muscle memory" for syntax when staring at a blank page, especially when the bikes I ride more often feel totally different. Having my intern instantly write an almost correct draft of a function/query helps a lot.

> Maybe it could be useful to ask questions that are similar to writing testcases "how can I verify that my query is doing the right thing"?

that seems like a good thread to pull on!