DuckDB 1.5.3 Adds Iceberg MERGE Support; PostgreSQL and SQLite Updates Covered

DuckDB v1.5.3 has been released with major enhancements to its Apache Iceberg integration, including support for MERGE INTO and ALTER TABLE statements that enable upserts and schema evolution via standard SQL. The update also introduces partition transforms, Iceberg V3 compatibility, and improved manifest layouts for better performance on large-scale data lakes. Separately, a technical article by Christophe Pettus examines the PostgreSQL configuration parameter enable_tidscan, explaining that it controls TID scans — a query method tied to internal row identifiers called ctids. Because ctids are unstable across operations like VACUUM and updates, TID scans rarely appear in normal query plans, making this GUC largely irrelevant for typical database tuning. The week's roundup also includes a community-driven SQLite optimization checklist aimed at developers working with embedded database deployments.