Have you interacted directly with a database through SQL queries?

Yes, direct interaction with a database through SQL queries is a common practice when working with Java. This is usually implemented using JDBC (Java Database Connectivity), which allows executing SQL queries against a database.

Example of a simple query using JDBC:

String query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?";
try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, user, password);
     PreparedStatement stmt = conn.prepareStatement(query)) {
    stmt.setInt(1, userId);
    ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery();
    while (rs.next()) {
        String name = rs.getString("name");
        // process data
    }
} catch (SQLException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

This approach gives full control over queries and allows optimizing interaction with the database.