I think this guide mostly dates from 2017, when Palantir was rolling out Spark and Spark SQL code authoring in their Foundry data platform. It mostly targets their untrained "delta" and "echo" employees, most of whose jobs rotated around writing ETL code for customers. I have no idea why this glorified Quip doc was open-sourced.
Looking at the list of contributors on Github, I think I remember that the main author was actually James Thompson (UK), and not anyone on the contributor list. JTUK was called that because the company had another employee, based in the US, who had the same name. James Thompson (US) is now at Facebook and is a pretty cool designer. His astronomer.io media project from 2011 comes up on HN periodically.
Of the people listed on Github, Andrew Ash (now at Google) is the original evangelist for Spark on Palantir Foundry, and Francisco is the PM for SkyWise, Palantir's lucrative, but ill-fated effort to save the Airbus A380.
Looking at the list of contributors on Github, I think I remember that the main author was actually James Thompson (UK), and not anyone on the contributor list. JTUK was called that because the company had another employee, based in the US, who had the same name. James Thompson (US) is now at Facebook and is a pretty cool designer. His astronomer.io media project from 2011 comes up on HN periodically.
Of the people listed on Github, Andrew Ash (now at Google) is the original evangelist for Spark on Palantir Foundry, and Francisco is the PM for SkyWise, Palantir's lucrative, but ill-fated effort to save the Airbus A380.