To a naive Flink newcomer (me) it's a little surprising that there is no pure "data" mechanism for specifying a Flink pipeline, only "code" interfaces. With the DataStream interface I can use Java, Scala or Python to set up a pipeline and then execute it - but that doesn't really seem to *need *a programming model, it seems like configuration, which could be done with data? OK, one does need occasionally to specify some custom code, e.g. a ProcessFunction, but for any given use-case, a relatively static library of such functions would seem fine.
My use case is that I have lots of customers, and I'm doing a similar job for each of them, so I'd prefer to have a library of common code (e.g. ProcessFunctions), and then specify each customer's specific requirements in a single config file. To do that in Java, I'd have to do metaprogramming (to build various pieces of Java out of that config file). Flink SQL seems to be the closest solution, but doesn't appear to support fundamental Flink concepts such as timers (?). Is there a plan to evolve Flink SQL to support timers? Timeouts is my specific need. Thanks, -Pilgrim -- Learn more at https://devicepilot.com @devicepilot <https://t.sidekickopen70.com/s2t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7kv8cpgQZVc6VPt59hl3kW7_k2842PjkFxW2R1KhZ7v4vclW2Rxbb82bzNKzf7GYHvr01?te=W3R5hFj4cm2zwW4fQ47l4fGCmnW3Fbt5S3H4THtF3F6jFSWsSg1&si=5987503666495488&pi=527a1892-cb03-476e-bce3-95b7b9783178>
