embedded databases

An Apple WWDC24 session introducing Embedded Swift, a subset of Swift with no runtime that targets tiny microcontrollers. It demonstrates the idea on an off-the-shelf Matter smart home device.

Khalil Estell's CppCon 2024 talk argues C++ exceptions can reduce binary size in firmware. He digs into how exceptions work and how to shrink their code footprint on embedded platforms.

The first lecture of Andy Pavlo's CMU 15-445 Intro to Database Systems (Fall 2019), covering course introduction and the relational model.

Lukas Eder's Devoxx talk on how modern cost-based SQL optimizers rewrite and plan queries in ways developers would not expect. It argues that declarative SQL, used well, can run complex queries very fast.

Peter Munch-Ellingsen explains at NimConf 2021 why he wrote his own keyboard firmware in Nim instead of using QMK or Arduino. He shows that the resulting firmware is very small.

A 2006 Google TechTalk in which SQLite's author Richard Hipp introduces the embeddable, zero-configuration C database library. He covers its history, strengths and weaknesses, and where it beats client/server databases.

Martin Odersky's JVM Language Summit 2015 talk argues that compilers can be thought of as databases. It describes design ideas for the Scala compiler and for developer tools.

Database pioneer Michael Stonebraker argues that 'big data' is really at least four different problems: big volumes with small analytics, big analytics, velocity, and variety. He comments on where each market is heading.

SQLite creator Richard Hipp gives a history of SQLite and explains where it shines as a database at the edge of the network with no DBA. He covers long-term support, testing and how it is used in products.

Mark Raasveldt of CWI presents DuckDB, an embeddable analytical database described as the SQLite for analytics, in a CMU Database Group talk. He explains why it was built, what it is for, and how it works.

A 10-minute clip from a Jonathan Blow Twitch stream in which he argues that game engines do not really need separate scripting languages. He questions the value of embedded interpreters when the main language can do the job.

An AdaCore webinar in which NVIDIA engineers explain why and how they adopted Ada and SPARK for security-critical firmware. It covers the business case and the engineering experience of the transition.

D. Richard Hipp's PGCon 2014 keynote on SQLite's relationship to PostgreSQL. He explains that SQLite was originally written from PostgreSQL 6.5 documentation and that the two engines serve different classes of problems.

Martin Fowler's GOTO 2012 introduction to NoSQL databases: where they came from, their data models, how consistency thinking differs, and when to use them. He argues they won't make relational databases obsolete and introduces polyglot persistence.

Rob Landley compares Toybox and BusyBox and surveys options for embedded system command-line tools, including GNU. He also tells the story of leaving BusyBox, Toybox becoming Android's command line, and licensing.

Patricia Aas's EuroBSDCon keynote is about ethics for people who build software, covering how the tech industry got to its current state and what engineers can do about it. It steps back from technical detail to the bigger picture.

Dan Saks's CppCon 2016 talk on why C programmers resist C++ and how to talk to them about it. He argues that persuasion rarely works by arguing and examines the culture gap between the two communities.

Ang Cui and Jonathan Voris present firmware modification attacks on networked printers at 28c3, showing how HP printers can be compromised and used as footholds for malware inside sensitive networks.

Fox Business interview in which Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison claims Oracle will beat Amazon at cloud databases. He argues the world's valuable data lives in Oracle and says Amazon struggled to move off it.

Jason Turner's CppCon 2016 talk builds a simple Commodore 64 game using C++17, showing how constexpr and const let a modern compiler produce tight 6502 code. He walks through assembly output to show abstractions being optimized away.

Dropbox engineer Kevin Modzelewski gives a Stanford colloquium on Dropbox's history and the technical problems it faced scaling, including detailed database schema decisions.

A maker's time-lapse of building a working computer inside a LEGO-style brick, using a tiny 0.42-inch OLED screen, with a demo at the end.

A three-hour PyCon 2016 tutorial by Christophe Pettus that orients Python developers to PostgreSQL. It covers installation, administration, and use, including vacuuming, MVCC, replication and backups.

Redis Labs and Tim Davis present RedisGraph, which uses GraphBLAS to treat graph queries in Cypher as sparse linear algebra for lower latency.

Turing Award winner Michael Stonebraker gives the 2018 Donald B. Gillies Memorial Lecture at Illinois. He discusses the gap between academic research and industry problems, publishing incentives, and the influence of large industry users on research.

A Strange Loop 2019 talk by Aaron Cummings on the computing systems aboard Voyager 1 and 2, which control the spacecraft and record and return data decades after launch in 1977.

Avi Bryant demos Dabble DB, a web-based spreadsheet-like database for building apps without code. It shows how users can model and relate data through a smooth interface.

Hamish Coleman describes reverse engineering the keyboard controller in a Thinkpad and reflashing it with custom firmware. He covers how Lenovo secures its firmware, and his ongoing work on the protocol between the BIOS and the vendor flash tool.

A Ropecon 2019 talk by a lighting designer and a software engineer on how the Odysseus larp spaceship was built, using over ten IT systems, hundreds of lights and dozens of speakers. It covers the lessons learned.

Cuong Do of YouTube describes how a handful of engineers scaled the site, covering hardware, software and database scalability challenges during its rapid growth. The talk was given at the 2007 Seattle Conference on Scalability.

Michael Arntzenius's Strange Loop talk on Datafun, a functional query language that brings database-style querying into a general-purpose language. It discusses bridging database theory and programming languages.

A guest lecture Jon Gjengset gave at Two Sigma on using Rust for large, high-performance systems. It covers why Rust suits such projects, the Noria research database, a concurrent data structure used in it, and practical experience.

Markus Winand shows how SQL has evolved since SQL-92, comparing old-style solutions to modern features such as window functions and system versioning, and notes that many developers never learn them.

Jon Gjengset's 2020 PhD dissertation presentation at MIT on partial state in dataflow-based materialized views, the idea behind the Noria database. The Q&A is cut out.

A DEF CON 23 talk by Marc Rogers and Kevin Mahaffey walking through the architecture of the Tesla Model S, what Tesla got right and wrong, and how the interconnected systems can be hacked. It also covers the data the car collects.

An episode of C++ Weekly in which Jason Turner shows modern C++14 compiling to the Commodore 64's 6502. It demonstrates writing efficient high-level code for 8-bit hardware.

A satirical animated dialogue in which a naive developer insists MongoDB is web scale while a database expert mocks him. It parodies the NoSQL versus relational debate.

Code Rush is a one-hour documentary following Netscape engineers in Silicon Valley through the company's last year as an independent firm. It covers the Mozilla open-source announcement, the frantic push to ready the source for release by March 31, 1998, and the toll on engineers' lives before the AOL acquisition.

Martin Kleppmann argues that databases are global shared mutable state and proposes treating them as an ever-growing log of immutable facts. Derived data such as caches, indexes and views is then built by stream processors like Apache Samza. The talk draws on Kafka and LinkedIn's experience with commit logs.

Ben Anderson's VICE documentary shows embedded reporting on Afghan security forces and US Marines in Helmand during the troop drawdown, exposing incompetence, drug abuse and corruption.