How to dictate SQL table, column and alias names

SQL identifiers are conventionally snake_case and SQL keywords are conventionally uppercase, which maps onto two VoiceGem commands. A query is mostly names, so the casing commands do more work in SQL than the symbol table does anywhere in the language.

An eleven-word select list takes about 13 seconds to type and about 4 seconds to say. (sources: Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson & Oulasvirta, “Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes”, CHI 2018, 168,000 participants, 136 million keystrokes; Yuan, Liberman & Cieri, “Towards an Integrated Understanding of Speaking Rate in Conversation”, Interspeech 2006, 2,438 American English telephone conversations (Switchboard corpus). The speech figure is conversational rate, not a measured dictation rate — no such measurement exists.)

Say this

What lands in your editor

select customer_id, total_order_value_from order_summary

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, stored, or logged.

Step by step

1
Say “snake case” before each identifier
Speak the command then the words of the table, column or alias. SQL convention is snake_case for all three, so one command covers every name in the query.
2
Say “comma” between select-list items
Speak the phrase between columns. VoiceGem's comma attaches left, producing the spacing a SQL formatter leaves.
3
Use “constant case” for uppercase keywords
Say the command if your house style uppercases SELECT and FROM. Most editors and formatters do this automatically, so it is usually unnecessary.
4
Type it instead
Use your database tool's autocomplete, which knows your actual schema. Autocomplete beats dictation for names that already exist and loses for aliases you are inventing.

Aliases are the SQL names dictation helps with most

Autocomplete knows your schema, so existing table and column names are faster to type than to say. Aliases are different: they do not exist until you invent them, there is nothing to complete, and a good alias is descriptive and therefore long.

The practical division is clear. Use your database tool's completion for schema names, and dictate the aliases, the CTE names and the computed column names — all of which are new snake_case identifiers that VoiceGem builds from one command and the words you were already choosing.

Where doing it by hand breaks down

Schema-aware autocomplete is a real advantage and nothing about dictating replaces it. For a query against a known table, the editor wins.

Long analytical queries with many computed aliases are the case that changes. A grouped query with six aggregate expressions needs six invented names, and typing snake_case aliases is the same Shift-hyphen cost as anywhere else. Dictating them in VoiceGem means the alias says what the column means rather than being shortened to save presses.

Doing this somewhere else? casing converter, on your own input, the same thing for dictating SQL functions, how naming things in Go by voice works, or naming things in Java by voice specifically.

Common questions

Usually not. Your database tool completes them from the real schema, which is faster and less error-prone than dictating them into VoiceGem.

Aliases, CTE names and computed column names. None of them exists yet, so there is nothing to autocomplete and they are long by convention.

Rarely. Most editors and formatters uppercase keywords automatically, so the constant case command is available but seldom needed.

Turn a list of column descriptions into snake_case aliases.

Open the tool