Hi folks, Here is the Meeting Notes and Recording link from the Variant Sync on August 06, 2026: [Notes <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IuhLRxw1rcPD_f4jgHuGe3SwFgy7Y5wgEGvLzf6311s/edit?tab=t.g06kaw1fbwhz> ]. Please reach out if you have any questions. Thanks.
On Thu, Jul 2, 2026 at 8:21 PM Neelesh Salian <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi folks, > > Here is the Meeting Notes and Recording link from the Variant Sync today > July 02, 2026: [Notes > <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IuhLRxw1rcPD_f4jgHuGe3SwFgy7Y5wgEGvLzf6311s/edit?tab=t.g06kaw1fbwhz> > ]. > There are some action items and active work. > Please reach out if you have any questions. > Thanks > > On Fri, Jun 5, 2026 at 12:22 PM Neelesh Salian <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hi folks, >> >> Here is the Meeting Notes and Recording link from the Variant Sync on >> June 4, 2026: [Notes >> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IuhLRxw1rcPD_f4jgHuGe3SwFgy7Y5wgEGvLzf6311s/edit?tab=t.g06kaw1fbwhz#heading=h.r977qio1wsv2> >> ]. >> There are some action items and active work. >> Please reach out if you have any questions. >> Thanks. >> >> On Fri, May 8, 2026 at 3:20 PM Neelesh Salian <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Hi folks, >>> >>> Here is the Meeting Notes and Recording link from the Variant Sync on >>> May 7, 2026: [Notes >>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IuhLRxw1rcPD_f4jgHuGe3SwFgy7Y5wgEGvLzf6311s/edit?tab=t.g06kaw1fbwhz> >>> ]. >>> There are some action items and active work. >>> Please reach out if you have any questions. >>> Thanks. >>> >>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 1:36 PM Neelesh Salian <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi folks, >>>> >>>> I've set up a time starting next week on Thursday (May 7, 2026) at 10 >>>> am Pacific time for a sync for the active work on Variant. >>>> This will be a monthly sync (on the first Thursday of every month). >>>> You can find it on the dev calendar. >>>> Here is the calendar invite: >>>> https://calendar.app.google/b8ykdTV3EaNnVnkv8 >>>> I'll be recording the call and capturing notes in the sync document: >>>> Iceberg >>>> - Variant Community Update >>>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IuhLRxw1rcPD_f4jgHuGe3SwFgy7Y5wgEGvLzf6311s/edit?usp=sharing> >>>> (Meeting >>>> Notes tab). >>>> Thanks. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Apr 20, 2026 at 1:49 PM Steve Loughran <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> + regarding the rust, go and cpp impls, a status from each team would >>>>> be great! >>>>> >>>>> I've been reviewing arrow parquet variant stuff and it is all there, >>>>> including with some benchmarks and optimisations. Which may put it ahead >>>>> of >>>>> the others. >>>>> >>>>> It also has some special handling for sorted variants, as key search >>>>> there is straightforward. AFAIK I don't think the others do that, and nor >>>>> do I see them going to any effort to sort fields in an object. I think >>>>> sorting would be good, but you would have to handle the case where there >>>>> are duplicate keys. It's allowed in the spec, and seems like itcould creep >>>>> in from nested variants. Has anyone looked at this? >>>>> >>>>> Also: has anyone created malformed parquet files with a shredded >>>>> variant and a metadata entry of the same name. The requirement is "ignore >>>>> the metadata one", but that's something to test. You'd have to write a >>>>> shredded file and then edit the binary content to achieve this, or >>>>> manually >>>>> create one and put it into the parquet-testing repository under bad-data/ >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, 20 Apr 2026 at 19:08, Qiegang Long <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for the doc to track the status! +1 on the dedicated >>>>>> sync—definitely feels like there’s a lot of work before we see Variant’s >>>>>> full potential. >>>>>> >>>>>> Qiegang >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Apr 20, 2026 at 11:09 AM Steve Loughran <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> This is great, we need that tracker as it is cross-project. piece of >>>>>>> work to say "this is readly >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I did have an agenda item from last month's community call which >>>>>>> didn't get through. If we can retain that open time slot we could do a >>>>>>> very >>>>>>> quick summary of where we are (summarly slides of Qiegang's results and >>>>>>> mine, key outstanding issues and next steps, then we can start that >>>>>>> monthly session on it. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Meanwhile, I have both parquet and iceberg PRs for benchmarks which >>>>>>> I think are ready for review -please take a look >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Finally, I'm thinking about interop of those many, many variant >>>>>>> readers out there. Has anyone explicitly cross-tested their >>>>>>> implementations >>>>>>> of variant? what about consistent handling of invalid data? That >>>>>>> includes >>>>>>> iceberg-rust, parquet-cpp and more... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Steve >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Sun, 19 Apr 2026 at 21:57, Neelesh Salian < >>>>>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Hi everyone, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The Variant umbrella issue (#10392 >>>>>>>> <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/issues/10392>) hasn't been >>>>>>>> updated in a while, and with active work happening across multiple PRs >>>>>>>> in >>>>>>>> Iceberg, Spark, and Parquet, it's been hard to keep track of where >>>>>>>> things >>>>>>>> stand. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Since a few of us are actively working on variant features, I >>>>>>>> thought it would help to put together a tracking document so the >>>>>>>> community >>>>>>>> has a single place to see the current state, open work, and benchmark >>>>>>>> findings. I plan to update this on a weekly basis to keep track of the >>>>>>>> issues and PRs that are updated. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Iceberg Variant Community Document >>>>>>>> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IuhLRxw1rcPD_f4jgHuGe3SwFgy7Y5wgEGvLzf6311s/edit?usp=sharing> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The document has three tabs: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 1. Overview - what shipped in 1.10, what's merged to main, open >>>>>>>> work areas, and the dependency graph across Iceberg, Spark, and >>>>>>>> Parquet >>>>>>>> 2. Tracker - all open variant issues and PRs across Iceberg, >>>>>>>> Parquet-Java, Parquet-Format, and Spark with authors and status >>>>>>>> 3. Benchmarks - summary of three independent benchmark efforts >>>>>>>> (details below) >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> *Benchmark findings* >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Three independent benchmarks have measured variant performance. All >>>>>>>> converge on the same picture: variant is a modest improvement over JSON >>>>>>>> strings today (1.1-1.7x faster reads), but 15-17x slower than typed >>>>>>>> columns. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> 1. Qiegang Long - 14 queries on GitHub Archive, 5 configs: >>>>>>>> https://qlong.github.io/posts/2026-03-30-variant-early-results >>>>>>>> 2. Steve Loughran - JMH microbenchmarks, profiler-driven >>>>>>>> optimization: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> https://steveloughran.github.io/benchmarking-variants/benchmarking-variants.html >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> <https://steveloughran.github.io/benchmarking-variants/benchmarking-variants.html> >>>>>>>> 3. Neelesh Salian - Controlled baseline, 10M+100M rows, write + >>>>>>>> read: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> https://github.com/nssalian/iceberg/tree/iceberg-variant-benchmark/benchmark >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> If you're working on variant-related changes, please chime in or >>>>>>>> let me know and I'll add it to the tracker. Feedback on the benchmarks >>>>>>>> or >>>>>>>> anything else is welcome. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I've been giving variant updates during the Iceberg Spark Sync >>>>>>>> (Tuesdays, 10 AM PT), but given that this work now spans Iceberg, >>>>>>>> Spark, >>>>>>>> Parquet, and Flink, I think it deserves its own forum. I'd like to >>>>>>>> propose >>>>>>>> a monthly Variant Sync; a short call where contributors can share >>>>>>>> progress, >>>>>>>> surface blockers, and coordinate across repos. If there's interest, >>>>>>>> I'll >>>>>>>> set one up and share an invite on this thread. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>>>> Neelesh Salian. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>
