> Since "standard" users are not going to learn SQL your market is narrowed to developers only.
Power users aren't _that_ narrow a user base. There are an enormous number of data miners (analysts, integrators, etc.) out there who work in Excel because they must, or because they're used to it, or because that's the format that their data arrives in, or because it's a nice visual tool that allows them to easily inspect intermediate results---but who ultimately need to run reports across multiple large spreadsheets. SQL is astonishingly easy for such people, and I've watched dozens of data experts learn it from scratch (with help).
I'd beg you not to add wizards to your product, and instead focus on treating power users rather than being all things to all people. (Your syntax highlighting is good, and little red underlines on unparseable SQL would be good.) Trying to train users to use (or avoid using) SQL with wizards is a dangerous business for a piece of software to be in.
This looks incredibly useful. I'll check it out more thoroughly on Monday.
Read up on Joel Spolsky's days at Microsoft trying to build a GUI code-builder for VBScript. Ultimate fail. Too complicated for basic users, too simple for power users.
Power users aren't _that_ narrow a user base. There are an enormous number of data miners (analysts, integrators, etc.) out there who work in Excel because they must, or because they're used to it, or because that's the format that their data arrives in, or because it's a nice visual tool that allows them to easily inspect intermediate results---but who ultimately need to run reports across multiple large spreadsheets. SQL is astonishingly easy for such people, and I've watched dozens of data experts learn it from scratch (with help).
I'd beg you not to add wizards to your product, and instead focus on treating power users rather than being all things to all people. (Your syntax highlighting is good, and little red underlines on unparseable SQL would be good.) Trying to train users to use (or avoid using) SQL with wizards is a dangerous business for a piece of software to be in.
This looks incredibly useful. I'll check it out more thoroughly on Monday.