[zhousun]

author here. I would actually second you. My core belief is "it is possible to build true database-like functionalities on top of iceberg", but it is definitely not 'easier' than building them directly in a db (in fact, doing them while keep iceberg-compatible is tricky. yep, that's the cost of being open and general purpose)

[kwillets]

I've been reading up on lakehouse stuff, and everything seems to agree with the idea that data warehouse functionality deteriorates as they try to accommodate raw data access.

The databricks people suggest that a better "cache format" is needed, but I don't see how that's different from ETLing the data into a regular warehouse.