Dolt is Git for Data: a SQL database that you can fork, clone, branch, merge

I never understood why we don’t have SQL databases that track all changes in a “third dimension” (column being one dimension, row being the second dimension).

It might be a bit slower to write, but hook the logic in to write/delete, and suddenly you can see exactly when a field was changed to break everything. The right middleware and you could see the user, IP, and query that changed it (along with any other queries before or after).

Because you can do that with after update triggers or server-side in software.

This has existed for a very long time as a data modeling strategy (most commonly, a "type 2 dimension") and is the way that all MVCC databases work under the covers. You don't need a special database to do this, just add another column to your database and populate it with a trigger or on update.

MS SQL server 2016 onwards has temporal tables that support this (point in time data)

This does exist, though support for it is pretty sparse; it's called "Temporal Tables" in the SQL:2011 standard - https://sigmodrecord.org/publications/sigmodRecord/1209/pdfs...

Last time I checked, it was supported in SQL server and MariaDB, and Postgres via an extension.

Huh. I just read the spec. Not quite three 'dimension', but looks like exactly what I was asking for: a (reasonably) automatic and transparent record of previous values, as well as timestamps for when they changed.

I'll call this a "you learn something every day" and a "hey thanks @tthun (and @predakanga)"