Not directly XTDB related, but I spoke with Prof. Viktor Leis last week about his recent CIDR paper: “A Critique of Modern SQL And A Proposal Towards A Simple and Expressive Query Language” which was co-authored with Thomas Neumann …big names in the world of database research!
It was a fun discussion that provides context as to why XTDB has been so fixated on Datalog (and now XTQL, in v2), and it’s a relatively soft introduction to some fairly deep (database) problems in modern computing! Read more: JUXT Cast: Sane Query Languages — with Prof. Viktor Leis
Or watch/listen here:
Want to see more of this kind of thing? All feedback welcome 
I’m tempted to get him back in a converation soon to discuss his other recent paper on building databases with unikernels 