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And what if I don't want to write scripts because other people have already automated all common database browsing/editing tasks for me? What if I don't want to reinvent the wheel?

With a GUI, you can click 3 times and browse 3 tables. That's just not possible without a GUI.

If GUIs didn't save people (lots of) time, no one would have invented them and the software industry would be moving away from them.

Besides being way faster and more efficient, GUIs do things that CLIs don't:

- linting/error-checking/autocomplete for SQL

- checking query sanity (warn before an unconstrained DELETE for example)

- copy/paste data (within the database and between applications)

- jump from FK cell to the row it references

The list goes on.



Scripted migrations have their advantages too:

- they can be stored in a version control system

- your coworkers can run them at their dev environment

- they can be used for automatic deployment

- you can test it in a dev environment before running at a production server. With GUI tools you have to remember and repeat exact steps you did before

- You can review the script or ask someone to look at it

I think GUI tools might be good for browsing and exploring database but not for making changes.




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