[ANNOUNCE] Weekly Community Update 2020/28

[Konstantin Knauf-3]

Dear community, 

happy to share this week's community update with a discussion on releasing Flink 1.11.1, FLIPs on a Python DataStream API and improvements to the "Connect API" of the Table API and a bit more.

Flink Development

==============

* [releases] Flink 1.11.0 was released. Check out the release announcement for an overview of the features and improvements that come with it. Thanks to Piotr and Zhijiang for managing the release. [1,2]

* [releases] Jark started a discussion on releasing Flink 1.11.1 following very soon after Flink 1.11.0 in order to resolve a couple of known issues mostly in the Table API / SQL ecosystem. [3]

* [python] Shuiqiang Chen has started a discussion on introducing a Python DataStream API along similar lines as the Python Table API. It is proposed to initially only support stateless user-defined functions. [4] 

* [table api] Jark has started a discussion thread for FLIP-129 to improve the "Connect API" in the Table API, i.e. the API a user uses to describe/register a Table with the environment. Many features (e.g. computed columns) that are already supported in the SQL DDL are not yet exposed in the Table API yet. [5]

[1] https://flink.apache.org/news/2020/07/06/release-1.11.0.html

[2] http://apache-flink-mailing-list-archive.1008284.n3.nabble.com/ANNOUNCE-Apache-Flink-1-11-0-released-tp43023.html

[3] http://apache-flink-mailing-list-archive.1008284.n3.nabble.com/DISCUSS-Releasing-Flink-1-11-1-soon-tp43065.html 

[4] http://apache-flink-mailing-list-archive.1008284.n3.nabble.com/DISCUSS-FLIP-130-Support-for-Python-DataStream-API-Stateless-Part-tp43035.html

[5] http://apache-flink-mailing-list-archive.1008284.n3.nabble.com/DISCUSS-FLIP-129-Refactor-Descriptor-API-to-register-connector-in-Table-API-tp42995.html

Notable Bugs
==========

Quite a few bugs reported for Flink 1.11.0. See also the discussion on a quick patch release.

* [FLINK-18419] [1.11.0] You can not create a catalog from a user JAR, e.g. a JAR passed via the sql-client CLI. Fixed for 1.11.1. [6]

* [FLINK-18583] [1.11.0] The _id field is incorrectly set to the index in the ElasticSearch table sink. Trivial fix targeted for 1.11.1. [7]

* [FLINK-18583] [1.11.1] The InfluxDB metrics reporter does not work as a plugin. Trivial fix targeted for 1.11.1. [8]

* [FLINK-18434 [1.10.0] You can not select fields when using the JDBC catalog. Fixed for 1.11.1. [9]

* [FLINK-18461] [1.11.0] It is currently not possible to write a changelog stream directly into an upsert sink (e.g. Elastic or JDBC). Fixed for 1.11.1. [10] 

[6] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-18419

[7] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-18583

[8] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-18573

[9] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-18434

[10] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-18461 

Events, Blog Posts, Misc
===================

* Piotr has joined the Apache Flink PMC. Congratulations! [10]

* My colleague Alexander Fedulov has started an introductory video series on Apache Flink and stream processing on Youtube. [11,12]

[10] http://apache-flink-mailing-list-archive.1008284.n3.nabble.com/ANNOUNCE-New-PMC-member-Piotr-Nowojski-tp42966p43022.html
[11] https://www.ververica.com/blog/presenting-our-streaming-concepts-introduction-to-flink-video-series

[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU1r7uEAO7o

Cheers, 

Konstantin

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