SELECT NAME FROM EMP WHERE DEPT = 'TOY'

...SQL has been celebrating its 50th birthday this year, and this original query still runs flawlessly across countless implementations - an impressive milestone in the world of software that nobody could have predicted back in 1974. SQL is the most potent example of declarative programming and backwards compatibility.

However SQL's continued dominance and legacy has not been without significant downsides. Mountains of complexity has been built, and continues to be built, upon its sprawling, anachronistic designs.

In search of some antidote to SQL's myriad issues the Clojure community has always been a vibrant melting pot of visions and attempts to tame SQL or surpass it entirely.

The XTDB team has spent the past 3 years working on evolving SQL to make it more compatible with Clojure's philosophy and in this talk we will take a tour through how this is achieved and where it might lead.

Speakers

Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy is the Head of Product at JUXT, with primary responsibility for XTDB. Jeremy has been digging into databases and "tools for thought" for much of his career. He was initially drawn to Clojure for the Datalog, but stayed for the parens.