Hah, I hear you :). Pushing this much logic into the DB can feel weird at times. And the application this is part of definitely has a lot of very complicated an

Hah, I hear you :). Pushing this much logic into the DB can feel weird at times. And the application this is part of definitely has a lot of very complicated and large SQL queries. That being said, I think things can be somewhat tamed by applying the same best practices to your SQL as you apply to your regular code: I.e. lots of tests, good comments and documentation, extracting logic into either set returning functions or functions suitable for lateral joins (both can be inlined if done right [1]), keeping things in version control, etc. But yes, applying those practices can be harder in SQL than it is in your application layer language for various reasons. So I'll always recommend avoiding going too crazy. You can often get the best of both worlds by making pragmatic choices about what should be done at which layer. No need to enslave yourself to a false dichotomy. [1]: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Inlining_of_SQL_functions https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Inlining_of_SQL_functions