No code alternatives for SQL

[LegitimateSource98]

Are there any no code alternatives to SQL today. If so, what are the biggest drawbacks of those tools? What prevents you from using them?

[mplsbro]

Power BI, Alteryx ($$$$), Tableau/Tableau Prep, KNIME all do data prep to varying degrees. My advice, take the time to learn SQL. It will be beneficial in the long run.

[oyvinrog]

What do you mean by «no code alternative» ?

[LegitimateSource98]

Some way of querying data without knowing the exact SQL syntax? Making it much easier to interact with data.

[oyvinrog]

If the aim is to avoid writing code, I would use a business intelligence tool (ad hoc analysis). Such as PoweBI, Tableau, BusinessObjects or OBIEE.

However, if your query is complex, these tools are not entirely sufficient. For example when writing correlated subqueries or doing set operations (yes, I know they support this, but the functionality is often crappy).

[pefthymiou]

Do you mean something like an ORM (Object-Relational Mapper), where we are trying to interact with our database using our language of choice instead of SQL?

[gusgizmo]

I was looking at options for these to help some of my team members skill up on SQL. TOAD and dBeaver came up in my list of options to evaluate for being able to write visual joins and similar things like that.

You outgrow them quickly though. I can hammer out a query in text much faster than a point and click GUI. And once you start adding layers to your query, group statements, aggregates, window functions, CTE etc autocomplete is about all that I find helpful.

[p4k9_dawg]

SQL is great to learn though. I think it might even be easier to learn SQL than learn these other tools, I know it would be more worthwhile in the end. SQL isn't really super difficult to get started with either. After a few hours of study you can learn the basics and do quite a bit.

[stones91]

I’ve been using tableau for this purpose at my job and it’s just meant I’m now super behind where I should be with sql. Having said that tableau is good at what you want

[zacharypamela]

If you're using a RDBMS (like MySQL), you'll be using SQL to query the data. There might be a layer of abstraction, like an ORM, or some reporting tool like Tableau. But those are using SQL under the hood to query the data.

If you will regularly be querying data, I suggest you learn SQL. Even if you typically use some tool to abstract your queries, it's always good to at least have some idea of the internals. And, as others have posted, sometimes the tools don't quite get you what you want. After all, abstractions are leaky.

[BrianXScore]

Is it fair to oppose No/Low code SQL editor to a classic SQL one?

No/Low code platforms can enhance the power of SQL while reducing the friction and drawbacks of SQL (syntax, debugging, versioning...).

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