feat: Add convenience methods for static row data in ChunkBuilder

[Weijun-H]

Related

Closes #10356

What

Introduce dds convenience methods to ChunkBuilder for creating static chunks (chunks with no timeline data). Previously, users had to manually pass TimePoint::default() to create static/timeless data.

Changes Made

New Methods Added to ChunkBuilder:

• with_static_row()
• with_static_sparse_row()
• with_static_archetype()
• with_static_component()
• with_static_component_batch()
• with_static_component_batches()
• with_static_sparse_component_batches()
• with_static_serialized_batch()
• with_static_serialized_batches()
• with_static_sparse_serialized_batches()

[grtlr]

It's not possible to build a chunk that mixes static and non-static data. I think adding these methods could lead someone to expect that this were possible (even more than the current API).

I think the root cause for this is the Debug-derive on TimePoint. I think we should rather deprecate that in favor of the already existing TimePoint::STATIC constant.

[Weijun-H]

It's not possible to build a chunk that mixes static and non-static data. I think adding these methods could lead someone to expect that this were possible (even more than the current API).

I think the root cause for this is the Debug-derive on TimePoint. I think we should rather deprecate that in favor of the already existing TimePoint::STATIC constant.

Hi @grtlr, thanks for reviewing. I agree. However, TimePoint::default() is too widely used to remove without causing breaking changes. As an alternative, we could add a check guard in with_sparse_row to prevent mixing static and temporal data in the same chunk. This would catch mixed chunks earlier while keeping the new static method available.

[emilk]

Instead of duplicating all of this API, the user can just call .with_row(row_id, TimePoint::STATIC, …). Obviously that wasn't discoverable enough. Not sure how we fix that, but maybe adding it as part of the docstring for .with_row and friends?