Over the last few years, ubiquitous connectivity has led to data being constantly generated at an unprecedented rate. As a result, large amounts of data are constantly being processed in a heterogeneous infrastructure which stems from the convergence of edge (IoT, mobile) and cloud computing. This poses fundamental challenges in software design, especially with respect to fault tolerance, data consistency, and privacy.

In this talk, we argue that programming languages are a fundamental weapon to tackle these issues and offer the abstraction tools to address the challenges posed by this scenario at various levels. We describe an innovative programming model that improves and simplifies the design of data-intensive applications. We also present the use of our programming framework on real-world case studies, emphasizing how to achieve fault tolerance and data consistency. Finally, we outline future challenges in programming languages for distributed systems.