CDG #12 The Analytics Stack Is Drowning in Ducks
A real-time exploration of Duck Lake, half-built catalogs, and why the future sounds like a duck.
I made an extra appearance on The Data Stack Show this week to talk about DuckDB, Duck Lake, and whatever aquatic metaphor the analytics ecosystem is flapping toward next.
really wanted to talk about the Duck Lake announcement, I brought the hard hitting questions:
(If you’ve ever wanted to hear me admit “I don’t actually know what this is” on-air, now’s your chance.)
We talked about the Duck Lake announcement, DuckDB’s new table format that’s “not competing with Iceberg” (it totally is), and then zoomed out to where this all fits into the Lakehouse blob of open standards, wild west of catalogs, and tools that are “definitely not trying to replace your stack.” (they are) Also, apparently there’s now a voice-enabled SQL that quacks1.
The future is here. It's weird. And it sounds like a duck.
Highlights from this week’s conversation include:
Discussion on Duck Lake Announcement (1:41)
Compatibility with Apache Iceberg (4:05)
Use Cases for DuckDB (6:23)
Concerns About Data Management (10:01)
Introduction to Data Formats (11:40)
Catalog Space Challenges (13:13)
Metadata Orchestration (14:54)
Simplicity in Data Management (15:25)
SQL Demo Discussion (17:26)
Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts (18:44)