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Storing code in a database is super cool stuff and is something I've been thinking about for a number of years. I'm actually surprised this development hasn't h
by jack_h 5y ago
Storing code in a database is super cool stuff and is something I've been thinking about for a number of years. I'm actually surprised this development hasn't happened sooner since basically all tooling is forced to deal with the limitations of storing source code as text.
The article gives an example that most programmers would be familiar with; canonicalization so that version control and code reviews go smoothly. Version control also becomes somewhat simpler as it can compare the structure of code rather than the structure of a sequence of characters that still must be lexed, parsed, etc. There are lots of other areas where storing code in a structured database of some sort would benefit tooling as well. One example is the use of language servers to index, perform continuous recompilation, perform cross-reference lookups, and offer code completion. With a structured database a lot of this becomes relatively trivial.
I'll definitely have to look into this language further as I'm curious about how their database is designed.