1. Refactored every client (Rust core, Python, Node/TypeScript) so
“namespace” usage is explicit: code now keeps namespace paths
(namespace_path) separate from namespace clients (namespace_client).
Connections propagate the client, table creation routes through it, and
managed versioning defaults are resolved from namespace metadata. Python
gained LanceNamespaceDBConnection/async counterparts, and the
namespace-focused tests were rewritten to match the clarified API
surface.
2. Synchronized the workspace with Lance 5.0.0-beta.3 (see
https://github.com/lance-format/lance/pull/6186 for the upstream
namespace refactor), updating Cargo/uv lockfiles and ensuring all
bindings align with the new namespace semantics.
3. Added a namespace-backed code path to lancedb.connect() via new
keyword arguments (namespace_client_impl, namespace_client_properties,
plus the existing pushdown-ops flag). When those kwargs are supplied,
connect() delegates to connect_namespace, so users can opt into
namespace clients without changing APIs. (The async helper will gain
parity in a later change)
In #2845 we ported the lancedb integration in lance-namespace to
lancedb. But that is too specific to RestNamespace. We can improve the
user entry point so that we can put local mode and future version of the
Flight SQL-based LanceDB server all behind this single
`LanceDbNamespaceClientBuilder` API.
Also I renamed `namespace` to `namesapceClient` to avoid confusion with
the namespace path.
After the refactoring on both client and server side, we should have the
ability to fully use lance REST namespace to call into LanceDB cloud and
enterprise. We can avoid having a JNI implementation (which today does
not really do anything except for vending a connection object), and just
use lance-core's RestNamespace.
We will at this moment have a LanceDbRestNamespaceBuilder to allow users
to more easily build the RestNamespace to talk to LanceDB Cloud or
Enterprise endpoint.
In the future, we could extend this further to also support the local
mode through DirectoryNamespace. That will be a separated PR.
