In this blog post, the author, Tom Ebergen, emphasizes the significance of query optimizers in analytical database systems, highlighting their role in enhancing performance and maintaining efficiency even as data changes. He advocates for giving optimizers more recognition in the database community, as they work silently but play a crucial role. Through examples and comparisons, he illustrates how built-in optimizers outperform hand optimizations in most scenarios. The post dives into the technical details of how optimizers work, such as Filter Pushdown, Join Order Optimization, and TopN Optimization, while emphasizing that some optimizations are impossible to replicate by hand. The author stresses the benefits of utilizing optimizers, especially in complex join queries, and highlights how DuckDB’s optimizer significantly boosts performance in various scenarios.
https://duckdb.org/2024/11/14/optimizers.html