Delta Lake for Rust Hacking: Schema Evolution & Async Debugging (Aug 19, 2025)

Join R. Tyler Croy and Robert Pack the first deep-dive hacking session on delta-rs. This episode focuses on the friction between logical and physical schemas, specifically when handling Column Mapping and Schema Evolution. They work through a series of "fun" technical hurdles, from troubleshooting panics in partition value handling to the universal struggle of using debuggers like GDB and LLDB with complex async Rust code. Tune in live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/agentdero Join Delta Lake on Slack: http://go.delta.io/ Check out delta-rs on GitHub: https://github.com/delta-io/delta-rs 0:00 Schema Evolution: Moving from non-nullable to nullable 18:05 Troubleshooting partition value naming mismatches 22:30 Debugging a panic in the Column Mapping read path 29:51 The struggle: Rust compile times and async debugging 34:06 Deep Dive: Physical vs. Logical names in partition values 36:00 Investigating the parse logic with "print" debugging 45:15 Why GDB/LLDB is difficult for async Rust workflows