Best of SQL — November 2025

  1. 1
    Article
    Avatar of vladmihalceaVlad Mihalcea·26w

    Just Use Postgres!

    A comprehensive review of Denis Magda's book covering PostgreSQL's capabilities beyond traditional relational features. The 402-page guide explores core database concepts like indexing (B+Tree, hash, partial), transactions, and modern SQL features (CTEs, window functions), then dives into non-relational capabilities including JSON storage and full-text search. The book examines PostgreSQL's extension ecosystem: pgvector for ML/GenAI embeddings, TimescaleDB for time series data, PostGIS for geospatial queries, and pgmq for message queues. Includes performance tuning guidance and discusses when PostgreSQL might not be the right choice.

  2. 2
    Article
    Avatar of phProduct Hunt·27w

    Reindeer: Cursor for databases

    Reindeer is an AI-powered IDE for database work that understands database schemas and generates production-ready SQL queries. It features autocomplete for complex SQL, automatic query fixing, and schema-aware assistance to streamline debugging and query optimization workflows without switching between tools.

  3. 3
    Article
    Avatar of postgresPostgreSQL·26w

    pg_ai_query — AI-powered SQL generation & query analysis for PostgreSQL

    pg_ai_query is a new PostgreSQL extension that enables AI-powered SQL query generation and analysis directly within Postgres. Developers can generate SQL queries from natural language descriptions and get AI-assisted explanations of query execution plans. The extension supports PostgreSQL 14+ and aims to streamline query development by eliminating the need to switch between tools.

  4. 4
    Article
    Avatar of bytebytegoByteByteGo·28w

    How Uber Built a Conversational AI Agent For Financial Analysis

    Uber built Finch, a conversational AI agent that enables finance teams to query financial data using natural language directly in Slack. The system translates questions into SQL queries, retrieves data from curated single-table data marts, and returns results in seconds. Finch uses a modular architecture with specialized agents orchestrated by LangGraph, OpenSearch for semantic mapping, and role-based access controls for security. The system includes continuous evaluation against golden queries, performance optimizations through parallel processing and pre-fetching, and plans to expand with deeper FinTech integration and human-in-the-loop validation for executive decisions.

  5. 5
    Article
    Avatar of grafanaGrafana Labs·28w

    Understand, diagnose, and optimize SQL queries: Introducing Grafana Cloud Database Observability

    Grafana Cloud Database Observability is now in public preview, offering developers, SREs, and DBAs tools to understand, diagnose, and optimize SQL queries. The solution addresses the visibility gap in database performance by providing query-level insights, execution plans, wait event analysis, and AI-powered optimization suggestions. It supports MySQL and PostgreSQL, integrates with Grafana Alloy for telemetry collection, and correlates database metrics with application and infrastructure data for comprehensive system-wide performance analysis.

  6. 6
    Article
    Avatar of salesforceengSalesforce Engineering·29w

    How Cursor AI Slashed Dashboard Migration Time 75%

    Salesforce's Mobile Performance Engineering team automated the migration of 20 production monitoring dashboards from Splunk to Tableau using Cursor AI and MCP Server, reducing engineering time by 75%. The migration involved translating 240 queries across dashboards while maintaining 99% production availability. Key technical challenges included converting Splunk's time series aggregation and automatic bucketing to SQL equivalents, mapping dynamic log fields to explicit table schemas, and handling complex date range translations. The team used iterative prompt engineering to teach AI tools to distinguish between syntax conversion and semantic intent, focusing on extracting raw data rather than preserving aggregations. Strategic validation through side-by-side query comparisons and confidence scoring ensured accuracy while preserving productivity gains. The freed engineering capacity enabled the team to shift from reactive migration work to proactive performance engineering, including shift-left AI adoption, preventive dashboards, and distributed tracing implementations.

  7. 7
    Article
    Avatar of hashrocketHashrocket·29w

    PostgreSQL 18 - Temporal Constraints

    PostgreSQL 18 introduces temporal constraints with the WITHOUT OVERLAPS syntax, enabling enforcement of uniqueness across time periods using date or timestamp ranges. This feature prevents overlapping data in scenarios like subscription management, where users can have multiple historical records but only one active entry at a time. The implementation uses range types (daterange or timestamprange) with GIST indexes and requires the btree_gist extension for UUID compatibility.

  8. 8
    Article
    Avatar of atomicobjectAtomic Spin·28w

    I Used a Full Stack Workflow to Organize a Complex Storyboard

    A developer shares how they built a custom database-backed API to organize a complex creative writing project. The solution uses SQL for data storage, .NET for the API layer with a repository-service-controller pattern, Docker for database initialization, and OpenAPI Generator to create an NPM package for frontend integration. The project demonstrates applying professional full-stack development patterns to solve personal organizational challenges, taking approximately 30 hours from conception to completion.

  9. 9
    Article
    Avatar of theverdictThe Verdict·28w

    Pretty cool find - Conar, an AI that writes and optimizes SQL for you

    Conar is an open-source AI tool that converts natural language queries into optimized SQL statements. It currently supports PostgreSQL with MySQL and MongoDB support planned. The tool features end-to-end encryption for credentials and queries, and allows users to select their preferred AI model. It aims to reduce the time developers spend writing repetitive SQL queries.

  10. 10
    Article
    Avatar of javarevisitedJavarevisited·28w

    Top 5 Frontend Masters Courses to Learn Java and Spring Boot in 2026

    A curated list of five Frontend Masters courses for learning Java and Spring Boot development. The selection includes Java fundamentals with Angie Jones, enterprise Spring Boot with Josh Long, web development basics, API design principles, and SQL with PostgreSQL. Each course is described with learning outcomes, instructor credentials, and target audience, along with a recommended 22-week learning path for progressing from beginner to professional-grade enterprise development.

  11. 11
    Article
    Avatar of hashrocketHashrocket·29w

    PostgreSQL 18 - VIRTUAL Generated Columns

    PostgreSQL 18 introduces VIRTUAL generated columns as the new default, computing values on-the-fly at query time instead of storing them on disk. Unlike STORED columns that existed since version 12, VIRTUAL columns save disk space but cannot be indexed. The choice between VIRTUAL and STORED depends on computation complexity, query patterns, and whether storage efficiency or query performance is prioritized. Simple concatenations work well as VIRTUAL, while complex computations or frequently filtered columns benefit from STORED with indexes.

  12. 12
    Article
    Avatar of jobsJobs·29w

    The Day Our Database Bill Nearly Sank the Company

    A SaaS startup reduced their database costs by 60% through systematic optimization. The team identified missing indexes causing full-table scans on 50M+ row tables, removed unused indexes, archived old logs to S3, and refactored queries. Results included 5x faster queries, 40% lower CPU load, and 50% storage cost reduction. The key takeaway emphasizes database optimization as an ongoing practice requiring regular monitoring of queries, maintaining lean indexes, and proper data lifecycle management.

See all SQL archives