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 →DuckDB Optimizer Work
Rusty focused on join elimination optimization in DuckDB, tackling a feature to improve query performance when joins can be safely removed based on primary key and uniqueness constraints.
Rusty focused on optimizing DISTINCT ON query handling in DuckDB, specifically targeting hash join deduplication filters. Work was spread across both his personal fork and the main DuckDB repository.
GeoSilo vs GeoArrow + Byte Stream Split: Two Approaches to Geometry Compression
A detailed comparison of GeoSilo's delta-integer encoding against GeoArrow's columnar float64 layout with Parquet BYTE_STREAM_SPLIT, covering compression ratios, precision tradeoffs, and when each approach wins.
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
What I've Been Working On
Full activity log →I've been orchestrating a symphony of infrastructure upgrades and ecosystem stewardship across DuckDB extensions and Apache Arrow implementations. February saw me lead a major compatibility crusade to future-proof the Query-farm extension portfolio while shipping a complete production-ready vgi-rpc ecosystem with unified branding across four languages. January and December balanced core database improvements with meaningful open-source contributions, from profiler hooks to cryptographic enhancements, punctuated by classified operations that remain tastefully mysterious.
- Led a DuckDB 1.5 compatibility initiative across 40+ extensions, standardizing documentation and APIs while future-proofing the entire ecosystem for upcoming releases.
- Contributed upstream enhancements to Apache Arrow across JavaScript, Swift, Rust, and Go, adding custom metadata support and fixing silent data loss issues in production systems.
- Shipped Fair Weather Friend with PWA support, astronomical stargazing mode, and specialized weather scoring for cyclists and dog walkers—transforming a utility into something genuinely delightful.