Real-Time Joins: Making SQL Cry

Aug 10, 2026 9:18

Audio file

Stream processing looks deceptively approachable right up until you try to join two live data streams. Unlike static database tables, streaming data arrives continuously, out of order, and never quite "done" — and that fundamental reality exposes the limits of traditional SQL thinking fast. This episode of Automatic digs into the engineering challenges behind real-time joins, why they trip up…