February 2025

Rusty committed to a complete msgpack migration in python-flight-server, leaving no stragglers behind in what appears to be a serialization format housecleaning operation. Sometimes the best fix is full commitment—no half measures, no looking back at the old serialization format.

Rusty swapped out JSON for MessagePack in airport's catalog request documents, because sometimes you need that binary serialization efficiency when your data structures are flying through the pipeline. A focused optimization day, proving that even a single commit can make the bytes flow faster.

Rusty kept the dependency gremlins at bay in cloudwatch-log-redirector, merging PR #18 to bump clap to version 4.5.30. Sometimes the most important work is the maintenance nobody sees—like changing the oil before the engine complains.

Rusty played DuckDB community shepherd today, syncing vcpkg commits between duckdb/community-extensions and extension-ci-tools in PR #304 to keep the 1.2.0 toolchain aligned. He also fielded questions on the geography extension in PR #303 and discussed WebAssembly support for airport in issue #12—because even airports need to fly in browsers.

Rusty went on a cross-repository crusade, spreading the gospel of StringStats::SetMaxStringLength across 11 different DuckDB forks and projects. After fixing string statistics handling in repos ranging from materialized views experiments to workflow optimizations, he consolidated the fix into PR #16326 on the main duckdb repo—because why patch 10 community forks when you can fix it at the source? A tidy bit of housekeeping on airport rounded out the day.

Rusty kept the CI machinery humming with a quick resync of airport to the main extension-ci-tools, ensuring the build pipeline stays fresh and aligned. Sometimes the most important commits are the ones that keep the lights on and the tests green.

Rusty wrestled with the eternal nemesis of cross-platform development: Windows builds. After patching up airport with more Windows build fixes, he dove into the open-source trenches to improve extension-ci-tools, fine-tuning vcpkg release target triplets and host triplets in PR #151—because nothing says "Monday" quite like compiler toolchain archaeology.

Rusty spent Valentine's Day romancing Windows build issues in airport, though the relationship proved complicated—ten commits worth of complicated. Between bumping extension-ci-tools (with creative spelling variations of "extention") and iterating on Windows fixes, he eventually had to revert a headers change in what can only be described as a tactical retreat. Love may be patient, but CI pipelines are not.

Rusty spent the day wrestling Windows builds into submission, with 13 commits on airport desperately trying variations of extension-ci-tools branches, DuckDB versions, and rtools configurations. The debugging safari also extended to the DuckDB ecosystem, where he opened PR #149 and PR #148 on extension-ci-tools to fix ccache key issues and bump version branches—because nothing says "community stewardship" like improving the build infrastructure everyone depends on.

Rusty went on a build-tool optimization spree, discovering that Windows builds could use a ninja speed boost. He opened PR #145 on extension-ci-tools to switch Windows builds to Ninja, then promptly bumped the tooling in both airport and evalexpr_rhai to catch the performance wave. A focused day of infrastructure improvements that should make future builds feel less like watching paint dry.

Rusty played version whack-a-mole in the DuckDB community extensions ecosystem, bumping lindel and evalexpr_rhai with surgical precision. He opened PR #292 and PR #293 on duckdb/community-extensions, ensuring the extension garden stays well-maintained and compatible. A light maintenance day, but somebody's got to keep the dependencies fresh!

Rusty went deep into the trenches of DuckDB extension infrastructure, wrestling with build configurations across evalexpr_rhai and opening a flurry of PRs to fix Windows ccache issues (PR #142, PR #143) and missing libunwind dependencies (PR #141) on extension-ci-tools. He also bumped datasketches via PR #288 on community-extensions and filed issue #144 documenting the Windows build cache problem—classic open-source stewardship mixed with the unglamorous joy of hunting down build system gremlins.

Rusty went full infrastructure archaeologist, wrestling Windows builds and vcpkg caching into submission across airport and the DuckDB ecosystem. After a heroic 14-commit marathon (mostly CI improvements and msgpack wrangling), he escalated the battle upstream with PR #140 and PR #139 on extension-ci-tools, plus filed issues #43696 and #43692 on Microsoft's vcpkg to flag curl compatibility quirks. Along the way, he chimed in on the Ubuntu image migration discussion—because when you're already neck-deep in build tooling, why not add OS versioning to the mix?

Rusty spent the day wrestling with CI infrastructure across multiple repos, bumping evalexpr_rhai, airport, and fuzzycomplete to DuckDB v1.2.0 while simultaneously battling disk space demons in Docker builds. After five increasingly desperate commits trying to fix CI settings on airport, he opened PR #137 on extension-ci-tools to move Docker paths under /mnt for breathing room, then filed issue #606 on corrosion-rs/corrosion about a stubborn musl target bug. He wrapped up by guiding the community through PR #286, helping skip the troublesome musl platform for fuzzycomplete—proof that sometimes the best solution is a strategic retreat.

Rusty spent the day in a passionate (if slightly chaotic) relationship with CI pipelines on airport, churning out nine commits with variations on the theme of "more ci" and "fix modules." Between moving things to main and wrestling with build configurations, he found time to respond to issue #10 about installation instructions, proving that even mid-CI-odyssey, he keeps the community loop closed.