[mooreds]

I was writing to agree with this and then thought about column aliases and views, which are two ways to hide the underlying database structure that SQL provides out of the box.

From the sqler readme I couldn't tell if either of those were available but I have used columns aliases when I have used other SQL to API gateways (like http://restsql.org ).

Such db level features definitely don't give you as much power to abstract as a full middle tier, but at least it is something. The trade may be worthwhile for the speed of API building. (I have worked with Google sheets as an API provider and that was far less flexible than sqler appears.)

It is always possible (though perhaps not pleasant) to swap out an API built on this type of direct SQL access technology with one built on a traditional middle tier.