> Would this require a
more fundamental change to the data layout as proposed (i.e. something we
> can't plugin by adding a new integer encoding)?

> We can plugin a new layout, it would just be an enum change which triggers
new
> code path. We would have have to swap out bit unpacker which I used
because
> it was already present in arrow code base. I agree that fastlanes would be
> good

I agree with both of your assessments that this could be added in the
future with the current spec.

Thanks for the clarifications

On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 5:38 PM PRATEEK GAUR <[email protected]> wrote:

> >
> >
> > I think we touched on this briefly in a sync but linear encoding was
> chosen
> > because we already have these routines written for DELTA_BINARY_PACKED? I
> > think the current design is extensible now to support other types of
> > integer encodings.  Or I might be misunderstanding. Would this require a
> > more fundamental change to the data layout as proposed (i.e. something we
> > can't plugin by adding a new integer encoding)?
> >
>
> We can plugin a new layout, it would just be an enum change which triggers
> new
> code path. We would have have to swap out bit unpacker which I used because
> it was already present in arrow code base. I agree that fastlanes would be
> good
> to have but that is also a more fundamental building block which I'm happy
> to
> take up outside the ALP effort and then integrate it with ALP later on
> given ALP
> allows a mechanism to deal with it with minimal changes.
>
> I fear with fastlanes and need to implement it it in all languages can
> potentially
> slow down the project.
>
>
>
> > If it isn't a fundamental change, unless we have a volunteer to implement
> > it immediately, I think we can maybe defer this for follow-up work on
> > integer encodings, and then add it as an option to ALP when it becomes
> > available. I want to be careful of moving the goal-posts here.
> >
>
> Okay you and I are thinking along the same lines :).
>
>
> >
> > 2) The layout for exceptions, specifically making sure that the spec
> allows
> > > other potential layouts in the future to make them more GPU friendly.
> One
> > > proposal is in the G-ALP[3] paper, but it comes with tradeoffs (e.g. it
> > > requires additional storage overhead).
> >
> >
> > I think changing the exception layout would be handled by the version
> enum
> > in the current proposal?
> >
>
> Yes, current spec allows for this.
>
>
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Micah
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 1:57 PM Andrew Lamb <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > First of all, thank you again for this spec. I would recommend anyone
> > else
> > > curious about ALP (or wanting to read a well written technical spec) to
> > > read Prateek's document -- it is really nice.
> > >
> > > I would like to raise two more items (I am not sure the spec needs to
> be
> > > changed to accommodate them, but I do think we should discuss them):
> > >
> > > 1) Interleaving the bitpacked values (this was suggested by Peter
> Boncz).
> > > Specifically, I recommend we consider the technique described in the
> > > FASTLANES paper[1] (figure 1) that interleaves bit-packed values in a
> > > pattern that enables decoding multiple values using a single
> > > SIMD instruction and is GPU friendly. To be clear we don't need to
> > > implement all of the techniques described in that paper, but I think
> the
> > > interleaving is worth considering. It seems like the current prototype
> > uses
> > > linear bitpacking[2]
> > >
> > > 2) The layout for exceptions, specifically making sure that the spec
> > allows
> > > other potential layouts in the future to make them more GPU friendly.
> One
> > > proposal is in the G-ALP[3] paper, but it comes with tradeoffs (e.g. it
> > > requires additional storage overhead).
> > >
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > >
> > > [1]: https://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol16/p2132-afroozeh.pdf
> > > [2]:
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/48345/changes#diff-f9ab708cab94060b4067fff0a6739e9c3751b450422115663b2bd0badfcc748bR801
> > > [3]: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3736227.3736242
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jan 14, 2026 at 3:21 PM Andrew Lamb <[email protected]>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Here is a PR that turns Prateek's document into markdown in the
> > > > parquet-format repo
> > > > - https://github.com/apache/parquet-format/pull/548
> > > >
> > > > I am a little worried we will have two set of parallel comments (one
> in
> > > > the google doc and one in the PR)
> > > >
> > > > However, the spec is of sufficient quality (thanks, again Prateek)
> that
> > > it
> > > > would be possible for another language implementation to be
> attempted.
> > > >
> > > > Andrew
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Jan 14, 2026 at 8:54 AM Andrew Lamb <[email protected]>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> I plan to help turn the document into a PR to parquet-format later
> > today
> > > >>
> > > >> And again thank you Prateek and everyone for helping make this
> happen
> > > >>
> > > >> Andrew
> > > >>
> > > >> On Wed, Jan 14, 2026 at 6:34 AM Antoine Pitrou <[email protected]>
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Yes, I'd really rather comment on the final spec, rather than a
> > Google
> > > >>> doc.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> (also, Google Doc comments are not terrific for non-trivial
> > > discussions)
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Le 14/01/2026 à 10:37, Gang Wu a écrit :
> > > >>> > Is it better to create a PR against
> > > >>> https://github.com/apache/parquet-format
> > > >>> > so
> > > >>> > it can become the single source of truth of the Parquet-ALP spec?
> > > >>> >
> > > >>> > On Wed, Jan 14, 2026 at 9:34 AM Julien Le Dem <[email protected]
> >
> > > >>> wrote:
> > > >>> >
> > > >>> >> Thank you Micah for the detailed review!
> > > >>> >> Who else needs to do a round of reviews on the spec before we
> can
> > > >>> finalize
> > > >>> >> it?
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > >
> >
>

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