Semantic layers, also known as metrics layers or “headless BI”, have become a popular topic in the online data community in recent years. For all the hype, the idea hasn't seen much traction. In this blog post, I hypothesize why not, and describe the Malloy language and why I think it has a better chance at succeeding.
Is this usable for writing apps too? Why would Malloy be limited to BI?
This looks like it has some nicely well structured patterns for authoring queries. Most places I go, people try Knex.js query-builder for a bit but bottom out fast & start writing raw sql. I've seen a number of homegrown generic query builders, each of which has been impossibly awful to understand & work with.
This looks like a decent take. It's weird to me that it's presented as having such a targeted audience for itself. I'm not sure if there's real constraints that makes it only applicable as such.