LFCS Seminar Wednesday 12th February: Wim Martens

Title: Programming in the Large with Data

 

Abstract

 

For 50 years, we have been programming with data using the query language / host language paradigm. It’s time to make a change! Rel is a new relational language whose key design goal is to allow both database querying and programming in the large without relying on the currently dominant paradigm in which a query sublanguage is embedded in a host programming language. With the new approach, we can model the semantics of entire enterprise applications relationally, which helps significantly reduce architecture complexity and avoid the well-known impedance mismatch problem. This paradigm shift is enabled by 50 years of database research, making it possible to revisit the sublanguage/host language paradigm, starting from the fundamental principles. We present the vision behind Rel and its main features:  those that give it the power to express traditional query language operations, and those that are designed to grow the language and allow programming in the large.

 

Bio

 

Wim Martens is professor for Data Intensive Computing at the University of Bayreuth. He is interested in foundational aspects of data management (with a current focus on query language design), the Web, logic, complexity, and formal language theory. One of his goals is to find a good balance for making programming with data easy, intuitive, precise, and efficient. His work received several awards at SIGMOD and ICDT, and he was an invited speaker at STOC and PODS.