Cool release.
IMO, "Why it's distinctive" is a bit misleading on a few points: certainly the dbt and DX folks can add their POV, but even considering stuff I know / authored ;-), https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.05368 from 2023 (and following releases) cover branches in a native way (no clone), immutability (re-run), and lineage.
Extensions to be considered are different languages (what about Python), and branch semantics. Two immediate questions would be: can you nest branches? How does merge works across systems if you don't control compute?
Hey jtagliabuetooso! Rocky is SQL-first instead of Python-first, and that was a deliberate scope choice. Also, Rocky acts as control plane that delegates compute to the warehouse (Databricks, etc) rather than owning the runtime. I don't have a strong use-case for nested branches, so no, that's not a feature Rocky has of today. I'll read the paper, thank you for sharing.
How is the Git semantics of merge, rebase and diff defined in the system?
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