We’ll start beginner-friendly, clarifying what a table format is and why it’s essential, then progressively dive into expert-level topics: metadata internals (snapshots, logs, manifests, LSM levels), row-level change strategies (COW, MOR, delete vectors), performance trade-offs, ecosystem support (Spark, Flink, Trino/Presto, DuckDB, warehouses), and adoption trends you should factor into your roadmap.