Arun

Architect at Cisco, with a longing for performance, systems, messaging & distributed computing.

[Rimsha Bhardwaj @heyrimsha]

An engineer from Charlotte, North Carolina sat down in the spring of 2000 to write software for guided missile destroyers in the United States Navy. The ships needed a database that did not require a system administrator on board.

So he wrote one himself. 26 years later that database, SQLite, runs inside every iPhone on Earth, every Android phone, every Mac, every Windows machine, every major web browser, every airplane cockpit avionics system, and most of the cars built in the last decade. It is the most widely deployed software in human history. He still maintains it from his home in North Carolina.

His name is D. Richard Hipp. Most people call him Richard.

Here is the story, because the engineer behind the most replicated piece of code on the planet is a man almost nobody can name.

Richard was born in Charlotte on April 9, 1961. He grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta. He graduated from Stone Mountain High School in 1979 and went to Georgia Tech, where he earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in electrical engineering by 1984. He spent three years at AT&T Bell Labs working in Unix and C. Then he went back to school at Duke University and earned a PhD in Computer Science in 1992. His dissertation was on spoken natural language dialog processing under Alan W. Biermann.

He could have stayed in academia. He told one interviewer the market for PhDs was saturated with better qualified candidates. He started a software consulting company instead. He married a musician and author named Ginger G. Wyrick in 1994 and renamed the firm Hipp, Wyrick and Company.

Then in 2000 he picked up a contract through General Dynamics to write software for the US Navy. The target was the Aegis class guided missile destroyer. The original system ran HP-UX with an IBM Informix database backend. The whole stack required a database administrator on board. The Navy did not want a database administrator on board. Richard's job was to make the database administrator unnecessary.

The design goals were simple. The database had to be self-contained. It had to run inside the application. It had to have zero configuration. It had to be transactional and reliable. It had to require no separate process. It had to be small.

On August 17, 2000 he released SQLite 1.0. He wrote it in C. The whole thing fit in less than a megabyte. The license he chose was the most extreme one possible. He released the source code into the public domain. No copyright. No royalties. No restrictions. Anyone could use it for anything forever.

The decision changed software history.

SQLite spread quietly. Mozilla adopted it for Firefox. Apple put it inside iOS. Google put it inside Android. Microsoft started shipping it inside Windows. Chrome, Safari, and Edge all use it. Photoshop uses it. Skype used it. Every major operating system you have ever touched runs SQLite somewhere underneath. The Airbus A350 uses it for flight software. Every Boeing 787 has SQLite onboard.

By 2026 SQLite was estimated to be running on more than 1 trillion devices. It is the most replicated piece of software ever written. Richard has personally turned down what is almost certainly hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties over the past 26 years by keeping it public domain.

The SQLite team is tiny. Richard and a small group of core contributors. He maintains a separate version control system he wrote himself called Fossil. He maintains a parser generator he wrote himself called Lemon. He maintains a diagram language he wrote himself called Pikchr. He is a member of the Tcl core team and has been for over 25 years. He answers questions on Hacker News under the username SQLite.

The project's public commitment is to support SQLite through the year 2050.

A Christian engineer from North Carolina wrote a small database for missile destroyers and released it for free.

It is now running inside every device in your house.

[Arun @computinglife]

Awesome read .. (shared by Michael Burry of Big Short fame)

https://t.co/Jf7DcWJ3IN

[Arun @computinglife]

@elonmusk Slow down & you will find it can.

[Md Ismail Šojal 🕷️ @0x0SojalSec]

Chinese scientists have developed,

The best shortest-path algorithm in 41 years!

A team from Tsinghua University has broken Dijkstra's "sorting barrier" - the first improvement since 1984.

Just use for a world-map 🤯

Paper - https://t.co/0AhR5O7vl4
https://t.co/a9KMVRuYGx

[Arun @computinglife]

Check it out - a mighty impressive DYI.

https://t.co/3FcuqrEmPY

[Arun @computinglife]

@IndiGo6E Already done - and copied asego too - no replies till date.

[Arun @computinglife]

@IndiGo6E has a zero cancellation policy which is a scam. Apparently its an insurance & not serviced by Indigo

Neither will they help you claim in, nor will the insurer @LibertyGILtd Liberty GI help you to claim it.

Do not book using this option if you flying Indigo

[Runtime @RuntimeBRT]

Pankaj Tanwar's (@the2ndfloorguy) AI-Powered Traffic Violation-Reporting Helmet is officially 2026's most viral Indian tech prototype.

We spoke to him about:

- Why he built it
- How it works
- What he's planning to do now that he's famous

Here's what he told us.

[Arun @computinglife]

@ChShersh Wouldn't it technically be the same as OOP with its "this" context?

[Ivan Velichko @iximiuz]

Everyone knows eBPF load balancers beat user-space LBs by avoiding packet copies and context switches.

But here's a little-known fact: you can build your own eBPF LB, with backend selection and session affinity, in 200 lines of C

Teodor proves it (again) https://t.co/0gHzbxZlmc

[Arun @computinglife]

@IndiGo6E Thanks for proving my point.

I'm unable to get hold of anyone from your insurer on phone or email.

Their website does not work & the support number just redirects people to the website.

In short, there is no help neither from you or your insurer.

In short its a scam !!

[Arun @computinglife]

@arpit_bhayani @Ujjwal__Baliyan Which one is the best right now or do you need multiple agents, depending on the task ?

[Arun @computinglife]

@arpit_bhayani @wittycarbon How do you prevent that from happening ? Go in and tinker with it a bit, so that you know where is what ?

[Anuj Dhar @anujdhar]

Gopal Mukherjee, better known as Gopal Patha, was born this day (Sept 7) in 1913. Now a household name across India thanks to #TheBengalFiles, Gopal countered violence with violence, which has never been approved by most Bengalis due to their Gandhian outlook. Hence, Gopal Mukherjee was ignored in his home state after independence. He died in anonymity in 2005.

#Bengal

[Arun @computinglife]

@makemytripcare Iam sure you can find all the relevant information frommthe booking id i have provided.

In any case I have explained in details to multiple representatives who have handled the same booking id. Pleas refer the 3 casa raised against the same

[Arun @computinglife]

@makemytrip is unable to coordinate a simple date change request

I cant talk to the property directly since they haven't taken the money.

Every vacation i wonder whether the extra to MMT is worth it or we can save money by going direct to the property..

[Arun @computinglife]

@makemytripcare here is the booking ID if you want to look into things - NH26151426296310

[Arun @computinglife]

I just published an article on Medium. Please let me know your thoughts.

Leaky Abstractions — Fibers in Java & some learning on AI code capabilities

https://t.co/liE2JPl200

[Rosy @rose_k01]

Pakistani Information Minister Ataullah Tarar gets Verbal Bashing & Reality Check from Yalda Hakim of SkyNews on Pakistani terror camps hit by Indian Armed Forces 🔥 #OperationSindoor #IndiaPakistanWar

[Tathvam-asi @tathvamasi6]

Be clear.

They are NOT farmers. They are Desh-Drohis.

#IndiaPakistanWar