Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2025)

I've been updating my HN bot (watch comments for keywords and post to Slack/Discord) written in Crystal to use raw SQL instead of unmaintained ORM.

Turns out the whole app needs only ~ 10 SQL requests, and it's way funier to write modern SQL than fighting the ORM.

The new code looks like this :

    db_message = Model.save_new_message!(@conf.db, DbButler::Hn, item, DbState::Processing)

Than I have a Model module with all the interactions with the DB

    def self.save_new_message!(db, butler, external_id, state) : Message
        sql = {{ read_file "./db/save_new_message.sql" }}
        db.query_one(sql, butler.to_s.downcase, external_id, state.to_s.downcase, as: Message)
   end

(thanks to Crystal ability to read a file at compile time - I can write raw SQL in a file with syntax highlithing and maybe typesafe if I connect the DB to the editor)

The land page is not ready, but the bot has been working for me for months https://newsbutler.xyz/