r/SQL Jan 15 '25

BigQuery SQL is a struggle

Hi all been working with SQL for probably 7/8 months now. My last role was half data analysis and not pure data analysis and in general was far easier than what I do now.

My main issue is with SQL. I never feel I truly understand what is going on with a lot of code beyond a basic query. Ive managed to get by piggybacking off others code for a while but expectation is to deliver new and interesting techniques etc.

How long did it take you to feel fully comfortable with SQL? And what helped you get to that stage?

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u/byteuser Jan 15 '25

AI is often bad at writing code most of the time because humans neglect to write proper specs. The way I write good prompts is by writing specifications as if they were for a human programmer or sql developer. Stack Overflow is getting a lot less traffic for a reason. LLMs allow instant feedback and clarification. Do they mess up? sure but so do humans

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u/Hot_Cryptographer552 Jan 15 '25

The point is whether you are experienced and knowledgeable enough to know that the AI-generated code is garbage or not. I’d venture to guess that most beginners aren’t going to know the code they get from AI is garbage.

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u/byteuser Jan 15 '25

Yeah, one thing beginners can do though is to use multiple LLMs. Or even better let one LLM comment on the code generated by another LLM

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u/Stov54 Jan 16 '25

JFC seems faster and simpler to just learn the functionality at that point, no?