Peter Lyons

SQLite on The Changelog

June 03, 2016

I just listened to The Changelog Episode 201 on SQLite with Richard Hipp. Completely fascinating. This project is completely on outlier on so many different facets.

It is one of the most widely-used software projects of all time. It is the work of a very small team (3 engineers I believe have done the vast majority of the coding). Richard codes it in a text editor he wrote (I believe Linus Torvalds also uses a custom editor he wrote). It is tracked in a version control system called fossil that Richard also wrote. SQLite has zero dependencies. Everything they need has been hand coded from scratch.

I found this interview completely spellbinding and would love to hear a follow-up. My mind just races with what Richard might say to me if he rode shotgun next to me coding for a few hours. What would he say about my tools? My methods? My domain knowledge?