Speaker:

Michael Sullivan

Date:

Mon Apr 21, 2025 @ 04:30pm EDT

Date:

Mon Apr 21, 2025

Time:

04:30pm EDT

Location:

https://cmu.zoom.us/j/93441451665?pwd=i9IsGbJAvpBFIfuCjGE3joyNKBA2RL.1Zoom

Title:

Gel: Replacing* SQL and Improving on the Relational Database Model

System:

Gel

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Talk Info:

Gel (formerly EdgeDB) is a new database built around an evolution of the relational model that we call “graph-relational”. In the graph-relational model, data is represented as strongly typed objects containing set-valued scalar properties and links to other objects. Missing values are represented in the language as empty sets (no NULL!), and have consistent semantics.

The query language, EdgeQL, supports convenient fetching and modification of nested data. EdgeQL queries are composable: queries can be used without restriction as subexpressions and bound to variables.

Gel is open source and is implemented on top of PostgreSQL. The compiler maps Gel’s graph-relational schemas to Postgres schemas and compiles EdgeQL queries into Postgres’s flavor of SQL.

Gel also, of course, now also supports querying and modifying the database using SQL.

This talk is part of the SQL or Death? Seminar Series.

Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/93441451665 (Passcode 261758)

Bio:

Michael (Sully) Sullivan is the lead compiler engineer at Gel. Previously, he worked at Dropbox on the mypy typechecker for Python and was a principal developer of the mypyc compiler for typed Python. He completed his Ph.D at Carnegie Mellon University in 2017, advised by Karl Crary, writing a thesis on the design and implementation of a new language memory model for low level concurrency.