[mattbrewsbytes]

The sq and jq tools are both neat command line gimmicks but in my workflow their usefulness is very short. I can't imagine using sq on a query involving a handful of tables and some inner/outer joins. How would I know its outputting the correct SQL? If you mess up joins you end up with bad output.

Here's my theory: some developers see simple languages that are easy to learn and want to build something more complex to output that language. Maybe its a sub-conscious thing.

HTML is another one, if explained simply, HTML and CSS basic use cases should be easy-ish to pick up by nearly anyone. The fact that we have so many over-engineered frameworks and libraries out there that generate these is evidence of over complicating simple things. Maybe its called resume driven development? Maybe people see genuine useful frameworks that get wide adoption and are wannabes?

[neilotoole]

> How would I know its outputting the correct SQL? If you mess up joins you end up with bad output.

The generated SQL is output in sq's logs, when logging is enabled.

https://sq.io/docs/config#logging

[mattbrewsbytes]

If I have to go look at log files to see if the intermediary tool is doing the right thing, I might as well just write the SQL myself, right? jq has more use cases dealing with JSON that could come in handy. sq seems to handle trivial use cases but for complicated data models its going to be a hindrance.