Python Polars 0.17.14

🚀 Performance improvements

• optimise align_frames and properly handle the case where the alignment key has duplicate values (#8825)

✨ Enhancements

• add an align option to pl.concat (#8835)
• add support for sql DISTINCT ON (#8824)
• add LazyFrame null_count (#8837)
• check categorical cache on transpose (#8836)
• add support for OFFSET keyword in SQL queries (#8833)
• optimise align_frames and properly handle the case where the alignment key has duplicate values (#8825)

🐞 Bug fixes

• parse offset-aware strings as UTC in read_csv when try_parse_dates=True (#8864)
• handle InitVar typing declarations on dataclass objects (#8856)
• free buffer, but not its contents (#8848)
• improve agg expr field types (#8834)
• optimise align_frames and properly handle the case where the alignment key has duplicate values (#8825)
• sql BETWEEN bounds should be inclusive (#8818)

🛠️ Other improvements

• add examples for Config "set_tbl_formatting" and "set_fmt_str_lengths" methods (#8859)
• Convert between Vec of Series/Pyseries using trait (#8846)

Thank you to all our contributors for making this release possible!
@MarcoGorelli, @alexander-beedie, @ritchie46, @stinodego and @universalmind303