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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · 7d

I jokingly call it "vibescaling"

Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · 7d

I like the “retvrn to terminals” discourse around UIs, but imo it misses why old terminal programs were (or were not) good. So it’s a boring aesthetic argument and not a functional one based on how humans consume information.

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · 12d

only took me two years before I needed to do my own safety triangle implementation

this works great for our upcoming "quick look" editor features

aside from function docs, what other quick look features would you like in the DuckDB UI?

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · May 30

Want to work on features like Instant SQL? My team is hiring!

jobs.ashbyhq.com/MotherDuck/3...

Software Engineer - Frontend

Join MotherDuck as a Frontend Software Engineer and help design intuitive, delightful interfaces that redefine how people interact with data—making complex workflows feel simple and even a little fun.

jobs.ashbyhq.com

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · May 30

My Data Council talk on Instant SQL is up on YouTube!

Instant SQL is MotherDuck's new realtime ad hoc querying and data debugging mode.

I go into details, but the talk itself is really about designing tools that both require mastery AND enable joyful flow.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSeB...

Instant Preview Mode Real Time Feedback to Make SQL Data Exploration Fly

YouTube video by Data Council

www.youtube.com

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · May 20

This is tomorrow!

lu.ma/xakrgxqu

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · May 17

Hear more about how we built Instant SQL by signing up here:

Stay in Flow with MotherDuck's Instant SQL - May 21 · Luma

Imagine writing SQL queries that give you instant visual feedback, transforming your entire data exploration experience. See how MotherDuck's Instant SQL…

lu.ma

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · May 17

I'm going to be talking online about the "why" and "how" of Instant SQL, our new ad hoc querying experience that enables keystroke-fast previews of results & deeper introspection into your query's data flow.

Weds. May 21st, 9:30am PDT

link in reply!

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 26

Possibly! We do have a plan to open source our UI, but not a firm timeline. Once that's done, Instant SQL will be freely available (w/ source) for anyone to integrate into their editor.

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

If you want to work on data-intensive UIs combining the best of databases and dataviz, my team is hiring. Send me a message in chat and let's connect. I'll have a JD up once I recover!

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

Read more details about Instant SQL below

motherduck.com/blog/introdu...

Instant SQL is here: Speedrun ad-hoc queries as you type - MotherDuck Blog

Type, see, tweak, repeat! Instant SQL is now in Preview in MotherDuck and the DuckDB Local UI. Bend reality with SQL superpowers to get real-time query results as you type. | Reading time: 8 min read

motherduck.com

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

I just gave a talk at Data Council about Instant SQL and will be sharing that once it's available. It's a really fun talk. Here's the vibe

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

Instant SQL works by using samples / subsets of data. Of course, at any point, you can run the actual query against your whole data set. Think of it as a complement to running your query, not an alternative.

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

Instant SQL is great for humans, but it also works GREAT with AI tools. Any suggestion made by an LLM is instantly previewed as you go, giving you a lot more confidence when working with SQL and AI.

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

Because we have access to the whole pipeline of the query, Instant SQL can dissect results, making it easy to debug complicated formulas and regular expressions

It's like we've turned your query into a big excel function that returns a list of expression trees on every keystroke

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

on every keystroke, Instant SQL parses the query, analyzes it, and caches just enough to render a preview of the SELECT statement where your cursor is. This enables inspection of CTEs and subqueries. Make a change, then go downstream, and see that change instantly reflected.

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

Instant SQL follows Bret Victor's 2 rules from "Inventing on Principle": when you make a change in your software, there can't be a delay and there can't be anything hidden

Using DuckDB's internals, we've built a realtime query-as-you-type system. But it does a lot more, too:

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Apr 24

So thrilled to announce we've released Instant SQL in both the MotherDuck and DuckDB UIs!

It's a new interaction pattern for writing SQL queries that provides realtime result previews and deep query inspection & debugging. Bye bye run button 👋

Truly, literally only possible with DuckDB

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 28

hah thanks! This is a one-way door for me; I can't go back to constantly mashing the run query button for every small change

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 28

Instant Preview Mode has been achieved internally

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 20

Migrating over my DuckDB AST path generation code to our UI. The way I've done gut-checks on the grammar is to use this CodeMirror semantic highlighting extension I wrote

We can implement a very long tail of unique features with the path generator, including instant preview mode

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 12

great feedback, thanks!

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 12

now at the top of HN!

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 12

this UI is V1, & a big project to hoist the MotherDuck UI into a new context. I can't wait to add more features!

If you've talked to me about how you use the CLI in the last month, please know you've made an impact on our roadmap!

Also, Column Explorer w/ max threads = 🌠

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Hamilton Ulmer @hamilton.bsky.social · Mar 12

In DuckDB land, it's common for databases to have paths. Rather than making icons for each type, we opted to separate memory vs. on-disk & add a location icon on the right. (This serves as a copy button too!)

We'll add custom icons for external dbs later (e.g. sqlite)

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