iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Ian Cook

Bryce @brycemecum.com · 02/09/2026

This release is cool for a lot of reasons but my favorite is that the new Observable does database access with ADBC and returns results as Arrow. And, as a bonus, it uses @columnar.tech 's dbc (dbc.how) to install drivers.

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 04/08/2026

Thanks for having me on -- really enjoyed digging into why database connectivity is still such a pain and how ADBC is fixing it

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Columnar @columnar.tech · 13/06/2026

This week we announced a new ADBC driver for Apache DataFusion. DataFusion is Rust-native, but now you can use it from 10+ other languages through the same zero-copy Arrow ADBC interface that connects to 30+ other databases and query engines. Learn more: docs.adbc-drivers.org/drivers/data...

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Columnar @columnar.tech · 02/06/2026

📣 Introducing databow: one command-line tool to query them all, built with Rust and ADBC. Query any SQL source that has an ADBC driver (30+ and counting) right from your terminal with one simple CLI. To install 👉 uv tool install databow More details at columnar.tech/blog/databow-cli

columnar.tech

Introducing databow

One command-line tool to query them all, built with Rust and ADBC

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 23/05/2026

This week we released an ADBC driver for Quack, @duckdb.org’s new native client-server protocol. Now you can query remote DuckDB servers using the same ADBC interface you already use for local DuckDB across 7+ languages—no third-party server extensions required. columnar.tech/blog/quack-a...

columnar.tech

Announcing an ADBC driver for Quack

A public preview of a driver for DuckDB’s new client-server protocol

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 09/05/2026

And if not there then surely at the NAPA across the block, or the Advance at the other end of town, or the O'Reilly next town over, or ...

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 09/05/2026

Seems like every DIY car repair I do recently has a stage in the middle where I leave the car in pieces for a day or two while I wait for a tool or part that I didn't expect to need and that none of the local stores have in stock to arrive from Amazon

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 09/05/2026

This week we released version 0.3.0 of dbc, the package manager for modern database drivers. This release makes dbc: 🧩 Easier to embed inside apps 🤖 Easier to run with AI agents ⚙️ Easier to set up in CI workflows Read the announcement and install or upgrade 👇 columnar.tech/blog/dbc-0.3.0

columnar.tech

Announcing dbc 0.3.0

The third release of dbc improves the experience for applications and agents that need to install and manage ADBC drivers.

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 27/04/2026

AI coding tools speed up how we build data-driven apps. But legacy database access patterns slow us down. Join us for a live hands-on workshop to learn how ADBC makes database access faster, more portable, and better suited to analytical and agentic work. Register on Luma: luma.com/3lt47cj9

luma.com

Hands-on workshop: Create data-driven apps faster with ADBC and AI · Zoom · Luma

AI coding tools are changing how we build data pipelines and applications, but all of that code still needs to connect to databases, and the connectivity layer…

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Apache Arrow @arrow.apache.org · 11/04/2026

Released this week: Version 23 of the ADBC libraries. Highlights include TOML-based connection profiles and a new Node.js driver manager on npm. See the blog post for details: arrow.apache.org/blog/2026/04...

Apache Arrow

ADBC 23 Release
Libraries and drivers

New TOML connection profiles
New driver manager for Node.js
New interfaces in the Go API
New functions in the JNI layer
Updated Python driver manager
Breaking changes to Rust APIs
New ADBC Homebrew formulae
Updated driver for PostgreSQL
Updated driver for SQLite

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 01/04/2026

We heard you: ADBC is great, but you need it on mainframes. Introducing ADBC for COBOL. The same connectors that work with Python, Rust, and Go now work with a language originally designed for punch cards. columnar.tech/blog/adbc-co...

columnar.tech

We built an ADBC interface for COBOL

Modern database connectivity meets 1959. It fits better than it should.

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 15/03/2026

The fastest operation is the one you don’t have to do. When a database natively supports @arrow.apache.org, ADBC can speed up fetching and ingestion by eliminating costly row/column conversions. How much faster is it in practice? We ran some benchmarks to find out. Link below 👇

An abstract hyperspace warp image inspired by the comedic "going plaid" effect from the 1980s cult film "Spaceballs".

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 21/02/2026

This week we shipped 4 updated ADBC drivers with major performance gains: ⏱️ 3× faster queries (BigQuery, MSSQL) ⚡ >30× faster ingest (MySQL, Trino) How we achieved it, what’s next, and what vendors can do to unlock even more speed: columnar.tech/blog/adbc-dr...

columnar.tech

A Deep Dive into ADBC Driver Optimization

What it takes to achieve good performance across different data systems

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 14/02/2026

This week we shipped the second release of dbc, the command-line tool for installing and managing ADBC drivers: 📦 More drivers (Oracle & Teradata) 🔐 Private registries 🛠️ Easier to embed in other tools 🧑‍💻 Better human UX 🤖 Better agent experience Full details in comments 👇

Terminal-style image showing the command `dbc install` typed in a command line box, with a colorful swirling list of database and data warehouse names in the background, illustrating that dbc can install ADBC drivers for many different systems.

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Apache Arrow @arrow.apache.org · 12/02/2026

Apache Arrow is 10 years old 🎉 The first git commit landed on 2016-02-05. Now Arrow has 10+ official implementations and a growing third-party ecosystem. Read our celebratory blog post for some tidbits of Arrow history, and our outlook on the present and future. arrow.apache.org/blog/2026/02...

arrow.apache.org

Apache Arrow is 10 years old 🎉

The Apache Arrow project was officially established and had its first git commit on February 5th 2016, and we are therefore enthusiastic to announce its 10-year anniversary! Looking back over these 10...

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 29/01/2026

Fetch query results without ODBC / JDBC bottlenecks. The new ADBC driver for Databricks is now available in early release. Install it with dbc.

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 31/12/2025

Data plumbing has never mattered more. From the maturation of open standards like ADBC and Iceberg to the infrastructure needed for agentic workflows, here are our 10 predictions for 2026 🔮 columnar.tech/blog/2026-pr...

columnar.tech

10 Predictions for Data Infrastructure in 2026

What we see coming in the year ahead

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 18/12/2025

dbc is a command-line tool that makes installing ADBC drivers 10× easier. Haven’t tried it yet? Get started with our new cheatsheet. 📥Download it at t.co/JcD9ElEwqS

ADBC driver management with dbc - Cheatsheet

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Bryce @brycemecum.com · 16/11/2025

Was anyone else like me, wondering if you can use ADBC with $5 Postgres from @planetscale.com? Well, you can! (No surprise) I wrote up my test at brycemecum.com/2025/11/15/a... #apachearrow #adbc

brycemecum.com

Using ADBC with $5 Planetscale - brycemecum.com

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 14/11/2025

ADBC drivers in #Java? Yes. The latest release of ADBC adds a JNI layer that lets Java apps load drivers, run queries, and fetch results fast in @arrow.apache.org format. Read the new blog post from @ian.columnar.tech and David Li for examples and perf comparisons vs. JDBC. Link in comments👇

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Greg Gates @gregat.es · 29/10/2025

At Row Zero we get amazing speeds ingesting data from Snowflake and other databases that can export column-oriented data. But there's a long tail of data stores that we're forced to slow down for, because they only allow row-oriented export. Here's hoping we can change that!

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 29/10/2025

The future of data connectivity is columnar. Today we launched @columnar.tech to accelerate the shift from slow, row-oriented APIs like ODBC and JDBC to >10x faster alternatives powered by @arrow.apache.org. Learn more 👇

columnar.tech

Announcing Columnar

Back to the future of data connectivity

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 23/10/2025

ODBC is getting tired. It just can't keep up with the fast new kids in the data world these days. The next generation is ready to take the torch. Meet ADBC, a fast, modern data connectivity standard built on @arrow.apache.org. Watch my new talk from the @db.cs.cmu.edu seminar: youtu.be/TjlmNGNx77E

youtu.be

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Rows: Columnar Data Connectivity with Apache Arrow ADBC (Ian Cook)

YouTube video by CMU Database Group

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Reposted by Ian Cook

CMU Database Group @db.cs.cmu.edu · 20/10/2025

Today's Future Data Systems Seminar Speaker: Ian Cook (@ian.columnar.tech) will present @columnar.tech's work on Apache Arrow's database connectivity API (ADBC). ADBC is available in modern DBMSs. Zoom talk open to public at 4:30pm ET. YouTube video available after: db.cs.cmu.edu/events/futur...

db.cs.cmu.edu

[Future Data] Where We're Going, We Don't Need Rows: Columnar Data Connectivity with ADBC - Carnegie Mellon Database Group

ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) is Apache Arrow’s answer to ODBC and JDBC:... Read More +

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Apache Arrow @arrow.apache.org · 28/08/2025

Register for the Apache Arrow Summit Paris 25 (October 2nd) at: www.meetup.com/pydata-paris... The event is hosted by @pydataparis.bsky.social We are looking forward to seeing you there and talking about all things Arrow.

meetup.com

Apache Arrow Summit, Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 9:30 AM | Meetup

The day after the PyData Paris conference, we’re excited to host the first-ever Apache Arrow Summit - a gathering dedicated to fostering collaboration and innovation within

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Columnar @columnar.tech · 18/08/2025

In September the @columnar.tech crew are headed to PyData Paris 2025 and the first ever Apache Arrow Summit. The organizer @quantstack.bsky.social is a dedicated supporter of @arrow.apache.org. We’re delighted to be sponsoring the event.

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Posit @posit.co · 11/07/2025

Next Tuesday, get ready to meet the mind behind #Pandas & #ApacheArrow! @wesmckinney.com shares his origin story (Part 1) on #TheTestSet. From speedruns to shaping the data stack, this is one you won't want to miss. Mark your calendar for Tuesday & subscribe at thetestset.co! #DataScience #Python

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Reposted by Ian Cook

bauplan @bauplan.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

🚀 Introducing **Bauplan** A serverless, code-native platform for building data and AI pipelines — directly on your object store. No clusters. No notebooks. No GUI based workflows. Just Python + SQL + S3. 👉 www.bauplanlabs.com/blog/hello-b...

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 13/01/2025

2025 is shaping up to be a breakout year for fast query result transfer with Apache Arrow. But what exactly makes it so fast? David Li, Matt Topol, and I break it down in this new blog post: arrow.apache.org/blog/2025/01...

arrow.apache.org

How the Apache Arrow Format Accelerates Query Result Transfer

Arrow speeds up query result transfer by slashing (de)serialization overheads. We outline five key attributes of the Arrow format that enable this.

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Apache Software Foundation (The ASF) @apache.org · 07/01/2025

[🎥 Watch] Apache Arrow is a columnar format and multi-language toolbox for fast data interchange and in-memory analytics. Matt Topol, Arrow PMC member, talks about Arrow subprojects and how you can get involved with the project. buff.ly/40qNPAL #opensource

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 30/12/2024

There are some great books in this vein by Joseph Stiglitz and David Graeber

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 19/12/2024

The best illustration of how users and buyers of a product can have opposite priorities

youtu.be

Jiffy Express - Saturday Night Live

YouTube video by Saturday Night Live

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Reposted by Ian Cook

Matthew Mullins @mmullins.coginiti.co · 13/12/2024

Would love to see more discussion of this. To Andy's point we have this wonderful Arrow eco system that's underdeveloped. In a world of columnar data we're still stuck using ODBC/JDBC for connectivity to most data systems. Hard to get some vendors to even talk about ADBC.

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 20/11/2024

Base64 decoding error on my Food Lion receipt today

A grocery store receipt showing an undecipherable series of characters followed by ",bin.base64"

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 19/11/2024

You might like to try Ibis: ibis-project.org. It was created by Wes McKinney (also the author of pandas) as a solution to some problems pandas couldn't solve well. It's had a lot of recent growth and improvement. There's a tutorial for users coming from dplyr: ibis-project.org/tutorials/ib...

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 14/11/2024

Yes—this came up for me because I’m playing with the Swift implementation of Apache Arrow, which is maintained in a directory of the Arrow monorepo, but Swift’s package manager assumes a 1:1 relationship of repo:package

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 14/11/2024

Pretty funny that the easiest way to do it was with an SVN command, until GitHub dropped support for that earlier this year.

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 14/11/2024

It's 2024 and there's still no way to download just one subdirectory of a Git repo without using a sketchy third-party website or tool? Wild.

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 03/11/2024

There’s some great news coming soon on this. Unfortunately I can’t share it publicly now, but DM me if you’re curious

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 30/10/2024

There’s also ADBC which aims to replace ODBC and JDBC in analytics applications with a much faster Arrow-based alternative. DM me if you’re interested to discuss

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 30/10/2024

Arrow IPC stream format works great for sending over HTTP APIs. There’s also Arrow Flight which is a framework for sending Arrow IPC data through RPC APIs. Arrow is much more efficient than JSON for data transport in OLAP applications because you avoid transposing columns to and from rows.

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 30/10/2024

The Arrow IPC stream format has become common in recent years as a data exchange format. Basically: If you design an optimal columnar format for on disk, you end up with something like Parquet. If you design an optimal column format for in memory and over the wire, you end up with Arrow IPC format

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Ian Cook @ian.columnar.tech · 28/10/2024

If you’re sending Arrow IPC over HTTP APIs, there are some great examples showing the basics at github.com/apache/arrow... Simply using the Arrow IPC stream format as a transport format (instead of JSON) usually gives most of the performance of Arrow Flight with lower implementation complexity

github.com

arrow-experiments/http at main · apache/arrow-experiments

Apache Arrow Development Experiments. Contribute to apache/arrow-experiments development by creating an account on GitHub.

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