if you're trying to have a general purpose relational database (eg well-modeled/normalized/hygienic/integrous/etc.) things like triggers, indexed/materialized v

if you're trying to have a general purpose relational database (eg well-modeled/normalized/hygienic/integrous/etc.) things like triggers, indexed/materialized views, and udfs become essential tools for maintaining a logical layer (the tables/views you present to users and applications) separate from the physical layer (the tables holding your raw data) tools like spanner and cockroach aren't meant to be general-purpose - these are purpose built for certain types of scenarios where you're probably already using a bunch of code to implement the physical layer (and where there's often no separation at all)