MongoDB's SQL-to-NoSQL converter uses AI to smash the language barrier

MongoDB has built an AI-powered SQL converter designed to help developers move from relational databases to its document-oriented NoSQL system. One analyst told us that there are more to database migrations than converting SQL, and it remains unclear how much the product features would help productivity given the scale of …

[b0llchit]

Translation: Yes, yes! We are on the AI bandwagon too! Please leave your $$$ with us and not the competition.

...which automates the translation of SQL into MongoDB's own query language...

And, well, nothing was gained but we got further away from a more generic language? Of course, there are use cases for a non-sql database. But I'm not sure you are going to benefit from this move to another obscure and proprietary language (since they moved away from the AGPL to a home made proprietary SSPL license).

[katrinab]

It is a document database, not an SQL database.

You need to completely re-think how you arrange the data. While you could use it like an SQL database, if you do that, you may as well just use an SQL database, you will get much better query performance.

[spold]

My hovercraft is full of eels. Would you like to come back to my place bouncy-bouncy?

[Simian Surprise]

Yes, but then you have your data in a NoSQL system...

[Sr Mad Science]

30 seconds to do the translation, 30 months clearing up the mess...

Did the people who invented this ever work with a real, live production SQL system?

I've spent my career working with SQL and I've never once seen a live system where everything in the schema could be taken at face value and was what the tables and columns claimed it to be. In the real world there will always be exceptions and kludges. Translating such a schema without the tribal knowledge of what it means will lead to deep, serious bugs.

So it'll run, and it'll produce code, but whether that code is even useful, never mind usable, is another question.

I can't wait to see the first complaint from someone who used the converter and then found that the numbers didn't tie when compared to the old system :)

[Steve Channell]

Back to the future?

"AI-powered SQL converter" sounds awfully like what we used to call a SQL parser - but this one requires you to review the generated code before actually running it.. not especially different from Oracle a couple of decades ago. Back in the early nineties, you'd run an explain plan on your SQL, and then add /*+ ... */ hints to ensure the plan was efficient

"Filter pizza orders by size, group the remaining documents by pizza name, and calculate the total quantity" isn't much clearer than "Select name, Sum(quantity) from order where size > :size group by name"

[LateAgain]

Call me cynical

If it says "WTF is all this crap" THEN I'll call it an AI.

(Or a DBA)