Comment by data-ottawa
16 hours ago
I write a lot of SQL and I haven't had these issues for months, even with smaller models. Opus can one shot most of my queries faster than I could type them.
Instead of stuffing the context with DDL I suggest:
1. Reorganize your data warehouse. It needs to be easy to find the correct data. Make sure you use ELT clear layers, meaningful schemas, and have per-model documentation. This is a ton of work, but if done right the payoff is massive.
2. I built a tool for myself to pull our warehouse into a graph for fuzzy search+dependency chain analysis. In the spring I made an MCP server for it and Claude uses that tool incredibly well for almost all queries. I haven't actually used the GUI or scripts since I built the MCP.
Claude and Devstral are the best models I've used for SQL. I cannot get Gemini to write decent modern sql -- even the Gemini data science/engineer agents in Google Cloud. I occasionally try the paid models through the API and still haven't been impressed.
>> I write a lot of SQL and I haven't had these issues for months, even with smaller models. Opus can one shot most of my queries faster than I could type them.
Same. SOTA models crush every SQL question I give them.
What is SOTA?
State of the art.