The SQL Ecosystem: Powering the Instant World with 40-Year-Old Legacy?

SQL is the lingua franca that everybody understands - across IT departments and beyond. But SQL is more than just "a language". It is the result of tough negotiations among industry leaders, generations of engineers, and data experts. It has become an ecosystem that has proven to survive a constantly changing IT landscape.

This talk is about the past, current state, and future of SQL. What were the key ingredients for its success? A declarative yet human readable syntax, automatic validation/optimization, catalog integration, schema-awareness, and built-in operators that get the job done. Great. Isn't that what we want in every API?

While some may be familiar with OVER windows or MATCH_RECOGNIZE by now, how many are aware of Polymorphic Table Functions and what they could unlock? SQL is clearly not a dead standard. The Apache Flink community has built a SQL ecosystem for almost a decade. Yet the journey continues. Let's recap and take a look at what lies ahead: how can we power the instant world with new SQL features?