Comparing a single metric over different time periods is a common procedure in data analytics, used to evaluate company performance or understand customer behavior. Analytical systems like Google Analytics provide tools for this comparison. To implement analytical visualization with Cube.js, a server and dashboard application are needed, starting from creating an Orders cube within the schema folder. The code retrieves data for each year using multiple queries, which can be messy and repetitive. However, with the 0.20.0 release of Cube.js, it's now possible to retrieve data for different time periods using a single query via the compareDateRange property. This allows rewriting the previous code in a simpler way, setting time periods dynamically while keeping code clean, and creating useful data visualizations with substantially less code.