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"Looker -- SQL for Dummies" Before you downvote me, these are not mine words but actually from a Looker engineer I asked to summarize the product. I don't know

by chirau 7y ago

"Looker -- SQL for Dummies" Before you downvote me, these are not mine words but actually from a Looker engineer I asked to summarize the product. I don't know how accurate the quote is, but it stuck with me. Also, congrats to the team I guess. Is an acquisition an accomplishment or just a decision?

mountainofdeath 7y ago
I can confirm that. I spent some time looking at it when the entire sales team at the SaaS startup I was at insisted on it. I'll admit, I have yet to see a BI tool that was this easy. I tried selling them first on a self-hosted instance of Apache Caravel, but it turns out ANY SQL is too much.
- sturgill 7y ago
  To be fair to LookML, it does some great things (kind of like SASS vs CSS). It's great defining constraints in a single variable and then being able to reuse those constraints in any query. It's also wonderful being able to set both default and global constraints: the first can be overwritten, but the second can't. I was once part of a project where we had certain users and payments we would flag as invalid (for fraud or other reasons). We wanted those records in our data warehouse for very specific reports, but never wanted anyone who was consuming reports to be able to include them in final counts. A global constraint in the LookML definition was a perfect answer. I could still run specific reports directly against Redshift, but there was no concern that a less technical manager would get confused. I'm not associated with Looker in any way, but have really enjoyed working with their product. I was really hoping they'd stay on the path of independence and IPO, but I can't fault them for taking billions of dollars and calling it a day...
- infinite8s 7y ago
  LookML is basically a DSL for business analytics rules (what does customer churn mean, how do we capture sales) compiled to SQL.
rockostrich 7y ago
Making money is an accomplishment for most people.
Scarbutt 7y ago
"Dropbox -- rsync for Dummies" ;)

by chirau 7y ago

mountainofdeath 7y ago

I can confirm that. I spent some time looking at it when the entire sales team at the SaaS startup I was at insisted on it. I'll admit, I have yet to see a BI tool that was this easy. I tried selling them first on a self-hosted instance of Apache Caravel, but it turns out ANY SQL is too much.

sturgill 7y ago
To be fair to LookML, it does some great things (kind of like SASS vs CSS). It's great defining constraints in a single variable and then being able to reuse those constraints in any query. It's also wonderful being able to set both default and global constraints: the first can be overwritten, but the second can't. I was once part of a project where we had certain users and payments we would flag as invalid (for fraud or other reasons). We wanted those records in our data warehouse for very specific reports, but never wanted anyone who was consuming reports to be able to include them in final counts. A global constraint in the LookML definition was a perfect answer. I could still run specific reports directly against Redshift, but there was no concern that a less technical manager would get confused. I'm not associated with Looker in any way, but have really enjoyed working with their product. I was really hoping they'd stay on the path of independence and IPO, but I can't fault them for taking billions of dollars and calling it a day...
infinite8s 7y ago
LookML is basically a DSL for business analytics rules (what does customer churn mean, how do we capture sales) compiled to SQL.

rockostrich 7y ago

Making money is an accomplishment for most people.

Scarbutt 7y ago

"Dropbox -- rsync for Dummies" ;)