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Getting AI to write good SQL

(cloud.google.com)
477 points richards | 2 comments | 16 May 25 21:10 UTC | HN request time: 0.52s | source
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mritchie712 ◴[16 May 25 21:43 UTC] No.44010031[source]▶
the short answer: use a semantic layer.

It's the cleanest way to give the right context and the best place to pull a human in the loop.

A human can validate and create all important metrics (e.g. what does "monthly active users" really mean) then an LLM can use that metric definition whenever asked for MAU.

With a semantic layer, you get the added benefit of writing queries in JSON instead of raw SQL. LLM's are much more consistent at writing a small JSON vs. hundreds of lines of SQL.

We[0] use cube[1] for this. It's the best open source semantic layer, but there's a couple closed source options too.

My last company wrote a post on this in 2021[2]. Looks like the acquirer stopped paying for the blog hosting, but the HN post is still up.

0 - https://www.definite.app/

1 - https://cube.dev/

2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25930190

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ljm ◴[16 May 25 22:32 UTC] No.44010358[source]▶
> you get the added benefit of writing queries in JSON instead of raw SQL.

I’m sorry, I can’t. The tail is wagging the dog.

dang, can you delete my account and scrub my history? I’m serious.

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IncreasePosts ◴[17 May 25 02:52 UTC] No.44011681[source]▶
You're right, it's a bit ridiculous. This is a perfect time to use xml instead of json.
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1. meindnoch ◴[17 May 25 10:02 UTC] No.44013246[source]▶
Clearly the right solution is to use XML Object Notation, aka XON™!

JSON:

  {"foo": ["bar", 42]}
XON:

  <Object>
    <Property>
      <Key>foo</Key>
      <Value>
        <Array>
          <String>bar</String>
          <Number>42</Number>
        </Arra>
      </Value>
    </Property>
  </Object>
It gives you all the flexibility of JSON with the mature tooling of XML!

Edit: jesus christ, it actually exists https://sevenval.gitbook.io/flat/reference/templating/oxn

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2. indymike ◴[17 May 25 11:28 UTC] No.44013524[source]▶
We had an IT guy who once bought an XML<->JSON server for $12,000. Very proud of his rack of "data appliances". It made XML like XON out of JSON and JSON that was a soup of elements attributes and ___content___, thus giving you the complexity of XML in JSON. I don't think it got used once by our dev team, and I'm pretty sure it never processed a byte of anything of value.