Best of DuckDB — January 2026

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    Article
    Avatar of duckdbDuckDB·15w

    Announcing DuckDB 1.4.4 LTS

    DuckDB 1.4.4 LTS has been released with bugfixes, performance improvements, and security patches. Key fixes include correctness issues with ANTI JOINs, ASOF joins, streaming window unions, and the mode() function in parallel execution. The release also addresses several crashes and segfaults, including issues with Hive partitioning and the C API. Performance optimizations include improved prepared statement parameter lookups. Version 1.5.0 is planned for the coming month, while the 1.4 LTS line will receive updates until mid-September.

  2. 2
    Article
    Avatar of duckdbDuckDB·18w

    DuckDB on LoongArch

    DuckDB was successfully compiled and tested on the LoongArch CPU architecture (Loongson 3A6000) using a MOREFINE M700S device. While DuckDB's unit tests passed without issues, TPC-H benchmark performance showed the system running approximately 10 times slower than an M3 Max MacBook Pro. The compilation required minimal patches, demonstrating DuckDB's portability across CPU architectures. Performance limitations are attributed to older toolchains (GCC 8.3, Linux kernel 4.19) and less mature optimization for the LoongArch platform compared to established x86/ARM ecosystems.

  3. 3
    Article
    Avatar of motherduckMotherDuck·15w

    SQL Golf: 5 SQL Tricks You Should (Probably) Never Use

    SQL golf challenges developers to write the shortest possible queries. This article explores five extreme techniques from the Quackmas 2025 competition: column position references (#N), boolean math for counting (sum(condition)), the mode() function to replace GROUP BY/ORDER BY/LIMIT, comma join syntax, and DuckDB-specific shortcuts like FROM-first syntax and QUALIFY. While these tricks produced winning solutions as short as 36 characters, they sacrifice readability for brevity. Some techniques like mode() and QUALIFY are genuinely useful in production, while others like #N column references and whitespace elimination should stay in competitions.

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