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•1y ago

Comments

jimbokun•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
Not necessarily, I see native speakers completely ignore this a lot.

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

kreetx•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
I prefer "ess queue ell" these days, but the first DBA I ever worked with pronounced it "squirrel".
gopalv•1y 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•1y ago
This is really great!!
gavinray•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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•1y ago
This is a SQL to X library, though. I don’t think it’s what you need.
gavinray•1y 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•1y 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•1y 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.

Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/21/six-search-engines-worth-trying-now-that-google-isnt-really-goo...
263•elorant•2h ago•202 comments

Magnifica Humanitas (Encyclical Letter)

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
367•theletterf•4h ago•136 comments

Leave Me Behind

http://androidessence.com/leave-me-behind/
135•mooreds•2h ago•83 comments

2026 HIPAA Security Rule Update

https://medcurity.com/hipaa-security-rule-2026-update/
16•mooreds•33m ago•1 comments

Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few

https://religionnews.com/2026/05/25/in-his-first-encyclical-pope-leo-xiv-says-ai-must-serve-human...
97•benwerd•1h ago•28 comments

C extensions, portability, and alternative compilers

https://lemon.rip/w/6-c-extensions-compilers/
5•xngbuilds•14m ago•0 comments

IBM Spins Off the First Pure-Play Quantum Chip Foundry

https://futurumgroup.com/insights/2-billion-chips-act-investment-in-quantum-bets-on-ibms-300mm-su...
56•rbanffy•4h ago•13 comments

Netherlands Seizes 800 Servers, Arrests 2 for Aiding Cyberattacks

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/05/netherlands-seizes-800-servers-arrests-2-for-aiding-cyberatta...
9•jruohonen•32m ago•0 comments

Didgeridoo playing as alternative treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea (2006)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1360393/
211•kelseyfrog•2d ago•101 comments

Your Old Devices Depend on Dying Sensors. The Silicon Labs Incident Proves It

https://www.cambridge.org/engage/coe/article-details/6a054b304770e67d92e8c7a2
11•openrockets•2d ago•2 comments

Show HN: Audiomass – a free, open-source multitrack audio editor for the web

https://audiomass.co/?multitrack=1
431•pantelisk•23h ago•92 comments

AI errno(2) values

https://www.netmeister.org/blog/ai-errno.html
53•zdw•2d ago•12 comments

DeepSeek reasonix, DeepSeek native coding agent with high caching and low cost

https://esengine.github.io/DeepSeek-Reasonix/
616•Alifatisk•1d ago•255 comments

Show HN: Geomatic – a command-driven geometry studio enabled with autodiff

https://www.tinyvolt.com/geomatic
38•nivter•6h ago•9 comments

The physicists who convinced Fermilab to send Brazil's emails

https://buttondown.com/blog/brazil-fermilab-email
13•maguay•4d ago•3 comments

Migrating from Go to Rust

https://corrode.dev/learn/migration-guides/go-to-rust/
360•jabits•19h ago•348 comments

Bytecode VMs in surprising places (2024)

https://dubroy.com/blog/bytecode-vms-in-surprising-places/
70•azhenley•3d ago•23 comments

White Rabbit – sub-nanosecond synchronization for large distributed systems

https://ohwr.org/projects/white-rabbit/
140•michaelsbradley•2d ago•30 comments

Notes about reading messages with the Python email packages

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/python/EmailPackagesNotes
35•ankitg12•5d ago•1 comments

I spent 50 hours drawing a line graph

https://www.dougmacdowell.com/50-hours-to-draw-some-lines.html
584•dougdude3339•3d ago•96 comments

Jira Is Turing-Complete

https://seriot.ch/computation/jira.html
234•vinhnx•10h ago•105 comments

A fundamental principle of aeronautical engineering has been overturned

https://www.wired.com/story/a-fundamental-principle-of-aeronautical-engineering-has-been-overturned/
195•littlexsparkee•19h ago•98 comments

Bug 1950764: Work Around Crash on Intel Raptor Lake CPU

https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D301917
131•luu•2d ago•43 comments

Pope Leo: opaque AI run by few firms risks "New Forms of Dehumanization"

https://variety.com/2026/biz/global/pope-leo-ai-encyclical-algorithms-threaten-dehumanisation-123...
14•embedding-shape•1h ago•2 comments

Microsoft pulls plug on plans for 244-acre data center in Caledonia

https://www.tmj4.com/news/racine-county/microsoft-pulls-plug-on-plans-for-244-acre-data-center-in...
9•cdrnsf•1h ago•1 comments

Rising seas will swallow New Orleans. People need to start relocating now

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/25/climate/new-orleans-sea-level-rise-relocation
61•breve•4h ago•59 comments

Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/04/microsoft-open-sources-the-earliest-dos-source-code-disco...
487•DamnInteresting•1d ago•177 comments

I love my Bluetooth keyboard

https://liquidbrain.net/blog/i-love-my-bluetooth-keyboard/
124•evakhoury•2d ago•124 comments

Defeating Git Rigour Fatigue with Jujutsu

https://ikesau.co/blog/defeating-git-rigour-fatigue-with-jujutsu/
153•ikesau•19h ago•150 comments

Building Pi with Pi

https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/5/24/pi-oss/
135•mplanchard•21h ago•116 comments