Rusty Conover

Rusty Conover

Data infrastructure engineer and founder of Query.Farm. Building DuckDB extensions, scaling data platforms, and writing about what I learn along the way.

DuckDB Apache Arrow Rust C++ TypeScript

Recent Activity

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7/10

Rusty had a hands-on day juggling multiple fronts: he was actively supporting the DuckDB community by troubleshooting Python replacement scans on duckdb-web (issue #6590) and helping iron out build configuration quirks in community-extensions (issue #1512 and PR #1513). Behind the scenes, classified operations on classified project, classified project, and classified project kept things interesting. The day saw solid momentum across rustyconover/community-extensions and adbc_scanner, with 9 commits spread strategically across the Query-farm ecosystem—a mix of community stewardship, infrastructure fixes, and undisclosed tinkering.

9 commits 2 PRs 1 issues
duckdb-web community-extensions community-extensions adbc_scanner + private
8/10

Rusty was a busy bee across the DuckDB ecosystem and beyond, dropping 24 commits across 8 repositories. On the DuckDB front, he opened three issues—tackling Python replacement scans with plain objects (issue #6590 on duckdb-web), COMPRESS option support via duckdb.connect() (issue #21342 on duckdb), and in-memory database checkpointing (issue #6588 on duckdb-web)—while also jumping into a community discussion. He provided stellar open-source stewardship by replying to issue #1492 on community-extensions regarding updates to the airport extension, keeping the DuckDB community extensions ship running smoothly. Behind closed doors, classified operations on classified project, classified project, and classified project were humming along nicely. The day also saw action on Query-farm's VGI infrastructure (vgi-injector and vgi-entrypoint), an Apache Arrow JS PR, and some Fly.io tooling work—including a fresh fork of flyctl and issue #4771 on superfly/flyctl about image config substitution during deploys.

24 commits 1 PRs 4 issues
duckdb-web duckdb arrow-js community-extensions flyctl flyctl + private
8/10

Rusty was a busy bee across the DuckDB ecosystem today, orchestrating 27 commits across five repos while juggling classified operations behind closed doors. On the open-source front, he tackled version management for airport by opening issue #46 and immediately weighing in on the discussion, plus replied to the upstream DuckDB community-extensions issue #1492 about keeping things in sync—classic maintainer energy. He also cracked open PR #42 on duckdb/community-extensions and spun up some fresh work in rustyconover/community-extensions, while keeping a5 and the community's tiny-parquet project on his radar. Meanwhile, classified project clearly demanded most of his attention with 27 events, while classified project, classified project, classified project, classified project, and classified project hummed along in the background.

27 commits 2 PRs 1 issues
egress-proxy-envoy-build community-extensions airport community-extensions a5 tiny-parquet + private

Posts & Events

Query.Farm

VGI Injector: A Tiny HTTPS Download-and-Execute Binary in Zig

I needed a self-contained binary that downloads a program over HTTPS and exec's it — small enough to run in a FROM scratch container with nothing else. Go and Rust couldn't get small enough. Zig could.

DuckDB

TIME Data Type Compatibility Across Databases

A survey of the TIME data type across 14 databases, comparing supported ranges, maximum values, and whether the special value 24:00:00 is accepted.

Query.Farm

Telemetry for DuckDB Extensions Without the Pain

I open-sourced the telemetry client I use across Query.Farm's DuckDB extensions. It's two files, one function call, and it only collects platform and version info.

Query.Farm

Releasing vgi-rpc: An RPC Framework Built on Apache Arrow

I built an RPC framework for Python that uses Apache Arrow IPC as the wire format and Python Protocol classes as the interface definition. No .proto files, no codegen — just type annotations.

DuckDB

Acronym-Aware Case Conversions in the DuckDB Inflector Extension

The Inflector extension for DuckDB now supports configurable acronyms, so case conversions preserve terms like HTML, API, and URL as fully uppercase — configured through a native DuckDB setting.

DuckDB

DuckDB Extension Development Workshop

DuckDB Developer Meeting #1 — Amsterdam, Netherlands

Apache Arrow

Building on Flight: Real-World Lessons from the DuckDB Airport Extension

Apache Arrow Summit 2025 — Paris, France

Query.Farm

Query.Farm: Growing DuckDB Community Extensions

DuckDB Amsterdam Meetup #3 — Amsterdam, Netherlands

What I've Been Working On

Full activity log →

I've spent the last three months deeply embedded in ecosystem stewardship—upgrading DuckDB extensions for future compatibility, contributing upstream enhancements to Apache Arrow across multiple languages, and shipping a production-ready vgi-rpc ecosystem with unified branding and documentation. February saw me orchestrating a compatibility crusade across 40+ repositories while building practical features into Fair Weather Friend; January balanced classified operations with meaningful open-source contributions and security improvements; December closed the year with aggressive dependency management and core DuckDB enhancements. Throughout this period, I've maintained a rhythm of both high-level infrastructure work and low-level performance optimization, proving that good stewardship means debugging alongside building.

• Led DuckDB 1.5 compatibility efforts across Query-farm extensions while standardizing documentation and fixing silent data drops in Apache Arrow's dictionary serialization across JavaScript, Swift, Rust, and Go implementations

• Shipped the complete vgi-rpc ecosystem with production-ready implementations in four languages, unified branding, hosted documentation, and proper licensing—plus transformed Fair Weather Friend with PWA support and domain-specific weather scoring modes

• Conducted systematic telemetry improvements and dependency updates across dozens of repositories, combining infrastructure polish with meaningful core database enhancements like profiler callbacks and improved query explanations