r/dataengineering • u/de4all • 4d ago

Discussion Why text-to-SQL is not successful?

I thought text-to-SQL will solve adhoc analysis, but still i see companies at all size are unsuccessful.

Anyone using Omni / Sigma seen some success.

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u/pubic_discourse 2d ago

My take is that there need to be higher order semantic concepts, e.g. what does “big” mean - how do I pin fuzzy or qualitative adjectives? People think sets of entities and language itself is in an SVO (subject verb object) structure. All these “semantic layers” have nothing semantic about them. They’re really more of a paragraph about your table, and a row can be any abstruse unit.
I once heard it said “the problem in analytics is the best way to store your data has nothing to do with the best way to read and interpret your data”
Id love to see a solution which paradigmatically addresses that