Turso crosses the mark of 128 contributors

Turso is the next evolution of SQLite, a fully-compatible complete rewrite in Rust, aiming at meeting the demands of modern applications.

Aside from new features like CDC tables and concurrent writes (in-progress, what sets Turso apart is the Open Contribution nature of the project. Unlike SQLite, which famously doesn't take any contributions, Turso aims to build a thriving community of developers that can set the direction of the project, inspired by the experience that Pekka and I had growing up coding for the Linux Kernel.

This is why it is so exciting to us that we just crossed the mark of 128 developers contributing to the project. Because 128 is a nice round and beautiful power of two, I sat down today with bit-aloo, who was the 128th person to contribute to Turso.

#The interview

#Tell us more about yourself? Who are you?

I'm a Software Engineer from India with around 4 years of experience. I've worked at companies like Oracle and Google, but eventually decided to leave the corporate ladder behind. These days, I work full-time on an Open Source project, mainly focusing on p2p systems. I'm also a Rust lang fellow and currently part of the Rust bootstrap team, you can spot me on the Rust contributors list.

#How did you get started with SQLite? What are the things you like about it ?

SQLite was the first database I used in Rust! Super easy to work with. I find the architecture pretty intuitive to understand, file-based, minimal setup, and plain SQL everywhere. I used it while building an indexer and really liked how straightforward it was. I did work at Oracle in the past, so I have some SQL experience professionally working with Oracle DB which was pretty bad. It is very slow, legacy code, etc. Compared to that, SQLite felt way more developer-friendly.

#How did you come across Turso?

Funny enough, I actually stumbled onto a blog you wrote last week about the Glommio Rust async executor. I sent you a DM and you told me about Turso. I’ve been in the Rust space for a while now, so seeing a full SQLite rewrite in Rust immediately caught my eye seemed like an interesting opportunity to learn and explore something deep.

#How was the experience contributing to the project?

The community is amazing! You immediately feel like you want to be a part of it. The engineering culture, optimization, attention to detail is off the charts. And everyone is so helpful! Yet code is pushed at super fast rate. Pretty smooth experience. I haven't faced any hurdles yet while maneuvering through the codebase.

#What do you view as next steps from here? Are you planning to stick around and contribute more?

Considering it's a rewrite in Rust and I'm a huge Rust nerd, I'm just interested in understanding SQLite internals and contributing to the project in meaningful ways!

I am not yet entirely sure what I want to look at next, but I'll certainly stick around! I’ve been exploring the codebase around the lexer, parser, and the whole query compilation part. I’m also very curious about the memory management side of things how pages are handled, how chunks are stored and framed.

The concurrency model in Turso is another area I find really interesting and want to dig into. There’s just so much to learn from every component of a database whether it’s the compiler, the query executor (VM), or memory management and all the orchestration around it.

Even the use of Deterministic Simulation Testing caught my attention, Turso is actually the first place I’ve seen them in action, and I’d love to explore that more someday. Damn, now that I think about it, every component brings its own set of unique excitements, especially when you have a community that’s just as excited to solve them.

#Do you have any word of advice for people interested in Open Source contributions or database internals?

Open Source is amazing because it gives you the freedom to work on stuff that genuinely excites you. For me, that meant diving into compilers and database internals but for somebody else, it could be something totally different. And that’s the best part. There are no walls, no gatekeeping. You're surrounded by people who are super passionate about what they’re building, and you get to learn and grow just by being part of it.

Even if you're curious about something like AI and have zero background, Open Source won’t stop you. In fact, it's probably the best way to go from “I have no clue” to “hey, I actually know my stuff.” Just find a project that sparks your interest and jump in. For me, that’s how I ended up learning and contributing to Turso.

#Want to join in and build the future of embedded databases?

Turso is an Open Contribution project, where every developer can contribute and earn the right to set the tone and the future of the project. To match SQLite's famous level of reliability, Turso employs modern testing techniques like Deterministic Simulation Testing.

Turso is currently in Alpha stage, but even during this stage, we're offering developers up to $1,000.00 if they find bugs that lead to a data corruption. As the project matures, we will increase the scope of the bugs and the size of the payout. Learn more here

If you want to join bit-aloo and many others and contribute to Turso, star us on Github and send your first PR!