prisma-client-go VS sqldef

The same company that stopped officially maintaining their golang library when it wasn't getting "the growth we were hoping for".

https://github.com/prisma/prisma-client-go/issues/707

I mistakenly write 'Python' while I actually meant 'Go', see prisma-go-client here. The idea is the same of course

Prisma Go implementation is no longer maintained...shame: https://github.com/prisma/prisma-client-go

From the schema, a TypeScript Prisma Client can be generated that can be used in Node.js applications - including Next.js! A Go Prisma Client is also in the works.

This is why https://github.com/prisma/prisma-client-go works via code generation and generates a complete query builder and return types for your database schema. It integrates with the Prisma ecosystem, so you can also make use of declarative migrations and more.

Thanks! Yeah definitely agree that building out declarative table management for Postgres would be a major effort. A few open source projects I've seen in that area include:

https://github.com/sqldef/sqldef (Go)

https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker (Python but being ported to Rust)

https://github.com/tyrchen/renovate (Rust)

https://github.com/blainehansen/postgres_migrator (Rust)

Some of these are based on parsing SQL, and others are based on running the CREATEs in a temporary location and introspecting the result.

The schema export side can be especially tricky for Postgres, since it lacks a built-in equivalent to MySQL's SHOW CREATE TABLE. So most of these declarative pg tools shell out to pg_dump, or require the user to do so. But sqldef actually implements CREATE TABLE dumping in pure Golang if I recall correctly, which is pretty cool.

There's also the question of implementing the table diff logic from scratch, vs shelling out to another tool or using a library. For the latter path, there's a nice blog post from Supabase about how they evaluated the various options: https://supabase.com/blog/supabase-cli#choosing-the-best-dif...

If you wish to auto-generate migrations, there are declarative schema change tools available for most relational databases. I'm the creator of Skeema [1] which provides them for MySQL, but there are options for other DBs too [2][3][4].

Prisma's migration system actually partially copied Skeema's design, while giving credit in a rather odd fashion which really rubbed me the wrong way: "The workflow of working with temporary databases and introspecting it to determine differences between schemas seems to be pretty common, this is for example what skeema does." [5]

While I doubt I was the first person to ever use that technique, I absolutely didn't copy it from anywhere, and it was never "pretty common". I'm not aware of any other older schema change systems that work this way.

[1] https://www.skeema.io

[2] https://github.com/djrobstep/migra

[3] https://github.com/k0kubun/sqldef

[4] https://david.rothlis.net/declarative-schema-migration-for-s...

[5] https://github.com/prisma/prisma-engines/blob/6be410e/migrat...

By the way, I have also made a repository that uses sqldef as a migration tool to make migration as easy as possible, so please take a look at it.

sqldef-gitops-cdk sqldef is an open source idempotent schema management for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and others. This repo provides a GitOps approach using AWS CDK of how you can approach database table migration.

I work heavily in this space and can add some more details :)

Tusker actually uses migra to power its functionality: https://github.com/bikeshedder/tusker#how-does-it-work

Tusker's flow is somewhat similar to sqldef https://github.com/k0kubun/sqldef , although the internal mechanics are quite different. Migra (and therefore Tusker) executes the SQL, introspects it, and diffs the introspected in-memory representation -- in other words, using the database directly as the canonical parser. In contrast, sqldef parses the SQL itself, builds an in-memory representation based on that, and then does the diff that way.

I'm the author of Skeema https://www.skeema.io which provides a similar declarative workflow for MySQL and MariaDB schema changes. Skeema uses an execute-and-introspect approach similar to Migra/Tusker, although each object is split out into its own .sql file for easier management in version control, with a multi-level directory hierarchy if you have multiple database instances and multiple schemas.

Skeema was conceptually inspired by Facebook's internal database schema change flow, as FB has used declarative schema management submission/review/execution company-wide for over a decade now. Skeema actually predates both Migra and sqldef slightly, although it did not influence them, all were developed separately.

In turn, Prisma Migrate and Vitess/PlanetScale declarative migrations were directly inspired by Skeema's approach, paradigms, and/or even direct use of source code in Vitess's case. (Although they're finally moving to a parser-based approach instead, which I recommended they do over a year ago, as it makes more sense for their use-case -- their whole product inherently requires a thorough SQL parser anyway...)

Thanks! I know of a couple Postgres tools that work in a declarative fashion: migra [1] and sqldef [2].

Migra is Postgres-specific. Its model is similar to Skeema's, in that the desired-state CREATEs are run in a temporary location and then introspected, to build an in-memory understanding of the desired state which can be diff'ed against the current actual state. (This approach was also borrowed by Prisma Migrate [3]). In this manner, the tool doesn't need a SQL parser, instead relying on the real DBMS to guarantee the CREATE is interpreted correctly with your exact DBMS version/flavor/settings.

In contrast, sqldef supports multiple databases, including Postgres and MySQL (among others). Unlike other tools, it uses a SQL parser-based approach to build its in-memory understanding of the desired state. As a DB professional, personally this approach scares me a bit, given the amount of nonstandard stuff in each DBMS's SQL dialect. But I'm inherently biased on this topic. And I will note sqldef's author is a core Ruby committer and JIT author, and is extremely skilled at parsers.

[1] https://databaseci.com/docs/migra

[2] https://github.com/k0kubun/sqldef

[3] https://github.com/prisma/prisma-engines/blob/main/migration...

Declarative schema management tools make this much easier. The concept is your schema repo just stores CREATE statements, and the schema management tool knows how to generate DDL to transition between the current state in your DB and the desired state in your repo.

I'm the author of declarative schema management tool skeema (https://www.skeema.io, for MySQL / MariaDB). Some other options in this space are sqldef (https://github.com/k0kubun/sqldef, for MySQL or Postgres) and migra (https://github.com/djrobstep/migra, for Postgres). In MS SQL Server, SSDT DACPACs are also somewhat similar.