AI in Production Without a WHERE Clause

AI in production without a second pair of eyes is a quick way to lose a table. Cardinal was going to add the WHERE clause. Eventually.

Cardinal Rules. A Saturday cartoon about AI and databases.

Every DBA carries the same scar. Somebody ran an UPDATE or a DELETE while the WHERE clause was still being typed, and the keyboard turned out to be faster than the thought.

What is new is the speed. Cardinal produces a complete, confident, perfectly formed statement before you have finished reading your own request. The pause where a person squints at the screen was the safety feature, and it is precisely the part that got removed.

Three things cost nothing and prevent the whole story. Give the assistant a login that can read and nothing else, so the worst case is a slow query instead of an empty table. Wrap anything that changes data in an explicit transaction, check the row count, then commit. And type the WHERE clause before the verb, because a half finished SELECT is harmless and a half finished DELETE is a resume update.

The VP is not wrong to want the speed. Writing the statement really is the slow part of the job for most people, and handing that over is a genuine gain. Pressing the button was never the slow part.

Cardinal can hold the pen. Somebody who will still be here on Monday holds the password.

Cardinal Rule

Type the WHERE clause first, especially when you are fast.

Read only login, explicit transaction, row count, then commit.

Cardinal maintains that the table had it coming. On the desk this season: AI: Nobody’s in There. But we’re still in here. (on Amazon) and 100 AI Interview Questions and Answers for Data Professionals (Kindle, also on Amazon.in, paperback and audiobook).

Next Saturday, Cardinal starts quizzing Sam out of my interview book.

Speed in production is not efficiency, it is exposure with better marketing.

Published by Pinal Dave on SQLAuthority. More of my work at pinaldave.com.