Ferry: Database-Supported Program Execution

We demonstrate the language Ferry and its editing, compilation, and execution environment FerryDeck. Ferry’s type system and operations match those of scripting or programming languages; its compiler has been designed to emit (bundles of) compliant and efficient SQL:1999 statements. Ferry acts as a glue that permits a programming style in which developers access database tables using their programing language’s own syntax and idioms - the Ferry-expressible fragments of such programs may be executed by a relational database back-end, i.e. close to the data. The demonstrator FerryDeck implements compile-and-execute-as-you-type interactivity for FerryDeck and offers a variety of (graphical) hooks to explore and inspect this approach to database-supported program execution.