Data is Rectangular and other Limiting Misconceptions (lloydtabb.substack.com)

In software we express our ideas through tools. In data, those tools think in rectangles. From spreadsheets to the data warehouses, to do any analytical calculation, you must first go through a rectangle. Forcing data through a rectangle shapes the way we solve problems (for example, dimensional fact tables, OLAP Cubes). But really, most data isn’t rectangular