The Recording
The Panelists
- Kevin Feasel
- Mala Mahadevan
Notes: Questions and Topics
SQL Server 2025 RC1
Our first topic was the announcement of SQL Server 2025 RC1. We spent some time talking about time to release between versions of SQL Server with the help of the SQL Server Editions website. We also talked about the likelihood of an RC2 or maybe even RC3 given how quickly Microsoft released RC1 after RC0.
Bad Articles about SQL Have Got to Go
The majority of this episode was dedicated to this Peter Wayner article on 13 reasons why SQL has to go. It conflates SQL the language standard with relational database management systems, but that’s fine. What wasn’t fine was how shallow and poorly-argued the whole thing was. I tried hard not to strawman his arguments, but they were not good. As for replacements, my goal at the end was to say that there exist specific domains in which non-relational data models can make sense, and there can be perfectly valid reasons to have non-relational systems. After all, I have an entire talk dedicated to this concept. Where I take umbrage is the idea that a key-value data store, document database, vector database, search indexing engine, or other technology is better than a relational database 95% of the time, or that some non-SQL language is better than SQL as a data-oriented domain-specific language. And that article didn’t move the needle even a tiny bit.