Thriving in the No Man's Land between compilers and databases

When developing new data-intensive applications, one faces a build-or-buy decision: use an existing off-the-shelf data management sys-tem (DMS) or implement a custom solution. While off-the-shelfsystems offer quick results, they lack the flexibility to accommo-date the changing requirements of long-term projects. Building asolution from scratch in a general-purpose programming language,however, comes with long-term development costs that may not bejustified. What is lacking is a middle ground or, more precisely,a clear migration path from off-the-shelf Data Management Sys-tems to customized applications in general-purpose programminglanguages. There is, in effect, a no man’s land that neither compilernor database researchers have claimed.We believe that this problem is an opportunity for the databasecommunity to claim a stake. We need to invest effort to transfer theoutcomes of data management research into fields of programminglanguages and compilers. The common complaint that other fieldsare re-inventing database techniques bears witness to the need forthat knowledge transfer. In this paper, we motivate the necessityfor data management techniques in general-purpose programminglanguages and outline a number of specific opportunities for knowl-edge transfer. This effort will not only cover the no man’s land butalso broaden the impact of data management research