r/programming • u/segv • 8d ago

Your executable is a SQLite database

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/23/your-executable-is-a-sqlite-database
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26

u/tomster10010 8d ago

That seems very cool. Can someone elaborate on why nix is so important to this? 

11

u/valarauca14 8d ago

Nothing they're doing requires nix. OP is mistaken in assuming boot.binfmt.registrations.self system is native to nix. It isn't, this is just linux, example

echo ':python_ext:E::py::/usr/bin/python3:' | \
    sudo tee /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register

binfmt_misc is like 10+ years old. Provided self-exec is static musl elf binary, their system should work on any linux kernel of the same architecture, with zero configuration. Unless they're tightly coupled to nix in other ways.

8

u/seamsay 8d ago

TBF OP never claims any of this is unique to or requires Nix, they just make some vague claims that this is "well suited" to Nix without really justifying them.

6

u/TPHRyan 7d ago

Based on how they phrased the paragraph introducing boot.binfmt.registrations.self, I'm not certain the author was assuming that. The first mention even links to docs.kernel.org - nothing to do with Nix.

6

u/Ok-Scheme-913 7d ago

It's a kernel feature and the OP literally links to the kernel's docs.

What is not possible with other distributions/package managers though is "seeing" the whole dependency chain of each and every package on the system, having it be programmable and easily retried with no clashes.