frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Anatomy of a SQL Engine

https://www.dolthub.com/blog/2025-04-25-sql-engine-anatomy/
168•ingve•9mo ago

Comments

jimbokun•9mo ago
Very nice write up enumerating all the stages of SQL query execution. Interesting even if you don’t care about the DoIt database specifically.
Austizzle•9mo ago
Man, this title tripped me up for a minute because I pronounce it with the letters like Ess-Queue-Ell

So the "A" in "A ess-queue-ell" engine felt like it should have been an "An" until I realized it was meant to be pronounced like "sequel"

perching_aix•9mo ago
Not necessarily, I see native speakers completely ignore this a lot.

Have you ever considered pronouncing it as squirrel by the way?

kreetx•9mo ago
Many (most?) non-native English speakers do pronounce it as ess-queue-ell, especially in their own languages, so yes, the use of "a" instead of "an" does look off from that perspective.
SloopJon•9mo ago
When I read SQL for Dummies almost thirty years ago, it made a point of distinguishing "sequel" as a historical predecessor to standard "SQL." As I recall, the author even asserted that SQL is not an acronym/initialism for structured query language. I felt funny saying sequel for the next decade or so, because I wasn't an old timer experienced with this pre-SQL technology.

Now I usually say sequel because everyone else does. That and it rolls off the tongue better than S-Q-L.

jtolmar•9mo ago
I prefer "ess queue ell" these days, but the first DBA I ever worked with pronounced it "squirrel".
gopalv•9mo ago
This is a great write up about a pull-style volcano SQL engine.

The IR I've used is the Calcite implementation, this looks very concept adjacent enough that it makes sense on the first read.

> tmp2/test-branch> explain plan select count() from xy join uv on x = u;

One of the helpful things we did was to build a graphviz dot export for the explains plans, which saved us days and years of work when trying to explain an optimization problem between the physical and logical layers.

My version would end up displayed as SVG like this

https://web.archive.org/web/20190724161156/http://people.apa...

But the calcite logical plans also have that dot export modes.

https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CALCITE-4197

th0ma5•9mo ago
This is really great!!
gavinray•9mo ago
Calcite also has a relatively-unknown web tool for plan visualization that lets you step through execution.

It's a method from "RuleMatchVisualizer":

https://github.com/apache/calcite/blob/36f6dddd894b8b79edeb5...

Here's a screenshot of what the webpage looks like, for anyone curious:

https://github.com/GavinRay97/GraphQLCalcite/blob/92b18a850d...

ignoreusernames•9mo ago
I recommend anyone who works with databases to write a simple engine. It's a lot simpler than you may think and it's a great exercise. If using python, sqlglot (https://github.com/tobymao/sqlglot) let's you skip all the parsing and it even does some simple optimizations. From the parsed query tree it's pretty straightforward to build a logical plan and execute that. You can even use python's builtin ast module to convert sql expressions into python ones (so no need for a custom interpreter!)
Abde-Notte•9mo ago
Second this - building even a simple engine gives real insight into query planning and execution. Once parsing is handled, the core ideas are a lot more approachable than they seem.
albert_e•9mo ago
Sorry for slight digression.

In a larger system we are building we need a text-to-sql capability for some structured data retrieval.

Is there a way one could utilize this library (sqlglot) to build a multi-dialect sql generator -- that is not currently solved by directly relying on a LLM that is better at code generation in general?

LtdJorge•9mo ago
This is a SQL to X library, though. I don’t think it’s what you need.
gavinray•9mo ago
You can use an LLM to generate query-builder expressions from popular libraries in whatever language.

For example, on the JVM there is jOOQ, which allows you to write something like:

  select(field("foo"), avg("bar")).from(table("todos"))
And then it will render dialect-specific SQL. It has very advanced emulation functionality for things like JSON aggregations and working around quirks of dialects.

Alternatively, you can ask an LLM to generate a specific dialect of SQL, and then use jOOQ to parse it to an AST, and then render it as a different dialect, like:

    val parser= DSL.using(SQLDialect.POSTGRES).parser()
    val parsedQuery = parser.parseQuery(postgresQuery)
    val renderedMySQL = DSL.using(SQLDialect.MYSQL).renderInlined(parsedQuery)
    println(renderedMySQL)
Unsure if functionality like this exists in other Query Builder libraries for other languages.
genai-analyst•9mo ago
another digression here... sorry... i see you're trying to diy text-to-sql—at some point you're gonna hit a bunch of hiccups. like, the model writes a query that “almost” works but joins the wrong tables, or it assumes column names that don’t exist, or it returns the wrong agg because it misread the intent. and retries won’t always save you—it’ll just confidently hallucinate again.

we’ve been through all of that at wobby.ai we ended up building a system where the data team defines guardrails and reusable query templates, so the agent doesn’t just make stuff up. it can still handle user prompts, but within a safe structure. if you want to save yourself from debugging this stuff endlessly, might be worth checking out wobby.ai.

KyleBrandt•9mo ago
Using dolthub's go-mysql-server for Grafana's upcoming SQL expressions feature (private preview in Grafana 12, but in the OSS version with a feature toggle).

GMS lets you provide your own table and database implementations, so we use GMS to perform SQL queries against Grafana's dataframes - so users can join or manipulate different data source queires, but we don't have to insert the data into SQL to do this thanks to GMS.

Claude Opus 4.6

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-6
1127•HellsMaddy•3h ago•477 comments

GPT-5.3-Codex

https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5-3-codex/
744•meetpateltech•3h ago•292 comments

My AI Adoption Journey

https://mitchellh.com/writing/my-ai-adoption-journey
113•anurag•2h ago•29 comments

We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-c-compiler
183•modeless•2h ago•143 comments

Orchestrate teams of Claude Code sessions

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-teams
239•davidbarker•3h ago•112 comments

MenuetOS – a GUI OS that boots from a single floppy disk

https://www.menuetos.net/
40•pjerem•2d ago•6 comments

There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]

https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf
78•wallflower•4d ago•21 comments

LinkedIn checks for 2953 browser extensions

https://github.com/mdp/linkedin-extension-fingerprinting
138•mdp•1h ago•76 comments

Don't rent the cloud, own instead

https://blog.comma.ai/datacenter/
1018•Torq_boi•15h ago•425 comments

A small, shared skill library by builders, for builders. (human and agent)

https://github.com/PsiACE/skills
35•recrush•3h ago•3 comments

Ardour 9.0 Released

https://ardour.org/whatsnew.html
156•PaulDavisThe1st•3h ago•26 comments

Claude Opus 4.6 extra usage promo

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13613973-claude-opus-4-6-extra-usage-promo
9•rob•1h ago•5 comments

Psychometric Jailbreaks Reveal Internal Conflict in Frontier Models

https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04124
35•toomuchtodo•3h ago•31 comments

150 MB Minimal FreeBSD Installation

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2026/02/01/150-mb-minimal-freebsd-installation/
108•vermaden•4d ago•16 comments

Maihem (YC W24): hiring senior robotics perception engineer (London, on-site)

https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maihem/8da3fa8b-5544-45de-a99e-888021519758
1•mxrns•4h ago

The New Collabora Office for Desktop

https://www.collaboraonline.com/collabora-office/
129•mfld•7h ago•79 comments

OpenClaw: When AI Agents Get Full System Access. Security nightmare?

https://innfactory.ai:443/en/blog/openclaw-ai-agent-security/
5•i-blis•4d ago•1 comments

Company as Code

https://blog.42futures.com/p/company-as-code
191•ahamez•8h ago•98 comments

Advancing finance with Claude Opus 4.6

https://claude.com/blog/opus-4-6-finance
106•da_grift_shift•3h ago•25 comments

When internal hostnames are leaked to the clown

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2026/02/03/badnas/
410•zdw•16h ago•218 comments

Hypernetworks: Neural Networks for Hierarchical Data

https://blog.sturdystatistics.com/posts/hnet_part_I/
5•mkmccjr•4h ago•0 comments

Opus 4.6 uncovers 500 zero-day flaws in open-source code

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/05/anthropic-claude-opus-46-software-hunting
132•speckx•3h ago•81 comments

Nanobot: Ultra-Lightweight Alternative to OpenClaw

https://github.com/HKUDS/nanobot
186•ms7892•11h ago•102 comments

GB Renewables Map

https://renewables-map.robinhawkes.com/
114•RobinL•8h ago•44 comments

Fela Kuti First African to Get Grammys Lifetime Achievement Award

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/1/fela-kuti-becomes-first-african-to-get-grammys-lifetime-a...
103•defrost•4d ago•24 comments

A Broken Heart

https://allenpike.com/2026/a-broken-heart/
139•memalign•4d ago•38 comments

Flock CEO calls Deflock a "terrorist organization" [video] (2025)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-kZGrDz7PU
233•cdrnsf•2h ago•141 comments

Programming Patterns: The Story of the Jacquard Loom

https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/jacquard-loom
69•andsoitis•4d ago•26 comments

CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/the-world-factbook/
251•ck2•7h ago•95 comments

Triton Bespoke Layouts

https://www.lei.chat/posts/triton-bespoke-layouts/
8•matt_d•4d ago•0 comments