Stream Processing Basics — Stateless Operations
A technology-agnostic explanation of stateless operators in stream processing.
If you read my recent post on stream processing, you should already understand how a basic stream processing program works. We learned that a stream processing program can be modeled, understood, and executed as a dataflow graph. This graph comprises operators collectively producing the desired output when data elements flow through them.
Today, we will dive deep into stateless operators, which are the simplest type and easy to learn and comprehend. We will cover the map, flatMap, filter, union, split, and keyby operators with specific examples.
I’m a big fan of abstractions, so the information in this post will be abstract, too! It is not specific to any stream processor and is free of technical jargon, allowing you to learn the principles before you get your hands dirty.
If you missed the first post of this series, you can read it here.
