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by deadbabe 398 days ago
There’s a lot of developers that are scared of the command-line. Truth is you don’t really need these IDEs if you truly know SQL and your database, writing queries isn’t difficult. Keeping a file with common queries isn’t hard either. But most developers just keep a very shallow pool of knowledge and lean into ORMs etc.
2 comments
codingjerk 398 days ago
I'm using CLIs like A LOT, but still would be happy to get _good_ autocomplete for SQL.

`psql` is pretty bad at it and in `\e` you will just end up in an editor, which will probably don't know about your schema.

I've tried many tools, but seems like I like DataGrip (or databases in PyCharm Professional) the most, so I use EAP from time to time, when I'm going to write a lot of SQL.

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dpflan 398 days ago
Hm, is there a psql extension to augment the CLI and provide better autocomplete, maybe even interface with LLM? And then it just stores whatever metadata (like queries you want to save) in its own tables...
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deadbabe 398 days ago
I’m really surprised that some rabid rustacean or something hasn’t written an entirely new and aesthetic CLI replacement for psql with all the modern comforts. Autocomplete menus, graphic icons, colors, etc…
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dpflan 398 days ago
Exactly, unleash the crabs.
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homebrewer 398 days ago
I am very comfortable in the command line and still work with databases in IDEA. It gives you:

— autocompletion for everything — table/function names, types; very helpful on projects with hundreds to thousands of tables

— navigation ("jump to referenced table", "find foreign keys to this column", etc)

— data export in two dozen formats (configurable)

— exactly the same UI for working with 30 database engines (or however many it supports, I'm too lazy to count). Especially helpful with databases that have atrocious CLI clients, like Oracle.

— a nice tree-structured view of your database; or you can generate a (possibly vector) diagram for the rare case when that helps

— high quality autoformatter that works for every SQL dialect it supports, and in the same way

— minor things like the ability to extract a subquery with a couple of key presses, or rename a table alias

Probably something else I'm forgetting.

Saving a couple of keystrokes when writing SQL has little to do with it.

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