Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Failed Experiment: A Git-Based Code Review Tool

2025-08-21

The author experimented with a tool called `git-review` to improve GitHub's code review process. The core idea was to treat code review as a commit stored within the repository, using in-code comments for review. However, the experiment was not successful. While adding comments directly to the code was highly efficient, modifying code under review proved tricky, especially dealing with conflicts and the friction of using `git push --force-with-lease`. The author ultimately abandoned the project but believes the core idea—in-code review—is valuable, and looks forward to future possibilities of improving code review through Git improvements.

(tigerbeetle.com)

Development

TigerBeetle's Hidden Bug: How Sophisticated Fuzzing Failed

2025-06-06

The TigerBeetle team discovered a bug in their query engine using Jepsen, surprisingly in a component previously fuzzed extensively by four separate fuzzers. The investigation revealed a blind spot in the fuzzer's input generation strategy, leaving certain query combinations uncovered. This stemmed from the fuzzer pre-registering queries during initialization—a simplification that inadvertently constrained input space diversity. By improving the fuzzer to generate more random inputs and perform more precise verification, the bug was successfully reproduced and fixed. This case highlights how even sophisticated fuzzing strategies can have blind spots, necessitating a combination of testing approaches for comprehensive software quality assurance.

(tigerbeetle.com)

Development

TigerBeetle's Docs Site Rebuild: Ditching Docusaurus for a Zig-Powered Solution

2025-04-10

TigerBeetle rebuilt its documentation site from scratch, abandoning Docusaurus (Node.js based) in favor of a lightweight, fast, Zig-powered static site generator. Leveraging Zig's build system and Pandoc, they achieved efficient Markdown parsing and HTML generation. The new site boasts improved user experience, a significantly smaller footprint, and even a fun Easter egg game. This rebuild showcases TigerBeetle's commitment to technical excellence and a lean approach.

(tigerbeetle.com)

Development Documentation Site

Enum of Arrays: A Novel Data Structure for Efficient Data Processing

2024-12-21

This article introduces a data structure called "Enum of Arrays" (EoA), similar to the popular "Struct of Arrays" (SoA), but with enums at its core. EoA packs multiple enum values into an array, using a single tag to identify the array's type. This reduces memory usage and branch prediction overhead, leading to more efficient data processing, particularly beneficial for SIMD optimization. The article uses the database system TigerBeetle as an example, illustrating how EoA enables efficient batch processing by effectively separating the control plane and data plane, resulting in significantly improved performance.

(tigerbeetle.com)

Development data structure SIMD optimization