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.
Recent Activity
View all →VGI RPC Libraries — Rusty released v0.6.2 and v0.6.1 across the three VGI RPC language implementations (vgi-rpc-typescript, vgi-rpc-go, and vgi-rpc-python), with multiple commits on main pushing updates to each.
Rusty pushed commits across two repositories today, continuing work on upcoming releases.
Rusty opened two complementary PRs addressing a fundamental limitation in DuckDB: the inability to interleave streaming SELECT queries with DML operations (UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE) within the same transaction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Extension Development Workshop
DuckDB Developer Meeting #1 — Amsterdam, Netherlands
Building on Flight: Real-World Lessons from the DuckDB Airport Extension
Apache Arrow Summit 2025 — Paris, France
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 invested in ecosystem stewardship and infrastructure modernization across the DuckDB and Apache Arrow landscapes. From future-proofing dozens of extensions for DuckDB 1.5 compatibility to shipping a complete production-ready vgi-rpc ecosystem with unified branding and multi-language implementations, I've balanced high-level architecture work with meticulous debugging of core database internals. The work has ranged from cosmetic (visual identity rollouts) to critical (fixing silent data drops in Arrow's IPC serialization and flagging encryption key leaks in DuckDB).
- Led DuckDB 1.5 compatibility across 40+ extensions and standardized documentation structures to future-proof the Query-farm portfolio against upcoming database releases.
- Contributed upstream enhancements to Apache Arrow across four language implementations, adding custom metadata support for RecordBatch IPC messages and fixing data serialization bugs affecting production systems.
- Shipped Fair Weather Friend with PWA support, specialized weather scoring for cycling and dog walking, plus built and deployed a complete vgi-rpc ecosystem in Python, C++, Go, and TypeScript with production infrastructure and SEO foundations.