system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
SQL Versus SQL (crosspost - AskTechnology)

I had a job interview today and I was asked if I had ever used SQL. I told them "I used it on a website". The interviewer quickly said SQL can't be used on websites, and "you must be talking about MySQL". I just said "yeah...of course", but is that true? I know that MySQL is the database management system, but wouldn't 'SQL' code used in conjuction with PHP just be considered 'SQL'? Which would make my statement true.

The guy was kind of rude about it and really made me doubt myself for the rest of the interview. So which is right?
gpt
It sounds like the interviewer doesn't entirely know what he's talking about.

SQL itself is just the querying language, where each database application (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, etc...) use a dialect of.

So yeah, the MySQL application itself is a popular one to use in conjunction with a website or web application, but that website is still going to be using SQL (MySQL's dialect of) to query that database.

In the case of PHP, if you're not using an ORM, then you'll still be building SQL queries inside of you PHP code, and then firing them off to the DB; that process is going to be pretty similar no matter whether it's MySQL or some other database application sitting on the back end.

So if you've used "SQL" with one database application, then you should be able to use what you learnt there to use SQL with some other database application.