sql.js VS v86

Hi HN! A friend and I were inspired by projects like https://github.com/sql-js/sql.js and the idea of querying files served over CDN with HTTP range requests. We started thinking: what would a database that was specifically designed for this type of use case look like? So we started building one, and we landed on a functional prototype that we're pretty proud of!

With our prototype, Appendable, we're able to serve and query large (GB+) datasets by hosting them on a static file host like Amazon S3 or Cloudflare R2 without running a separate server and worrying about things like tail latency, replication, and connection pooling -- all that is handled for us by the file hoster.

Additionally, one tenet that we have been following is Appendable won't touch your underlying data, so your jsonl file is preserved and we point at that data instead of consuming it into an Appendable-specific file format. This keeps your data yours and makes it easy to introspect the data: just open it up with your favorite editor aka vim.

We're curious what you think, we're excited to build this out further to get the performance even better and add features like pubsub. Everything is open source at https://github.com/kevmo314/appendable.

Kevin and Matthew

My project is powered by sql.js, I recommend checking that out if you're interested - https://github.com/sql-js/sql.js/

Maybe you can try to use some SQL database compiled as Web Assembly Modules? Like this one for example: https://github.com/sql-js/sql.js

If you want to have persistence, then I would go with a database like Dexie, as it uses IndexedDB and has transactions. If you just want something that's in memory, you could look at Sql.js or something simple like lowdb.

not necessarily. you can host an html/js/sqlite site on github pages for free. json -> sqlite3 js -> sql

Link: https://sql.js.org

Does it work with really large files? Like, >100mb or so. I was considering making something similar but with sqlite.js [1], but the problem with it is that it loads everything in memory, so I wasn't entirely sure how it will deal with larger workloads.

[1]: https://sql.js.org/#/

> As a thought experiment, we're almost there! We could technically have `win95.img + bochs86vm.wasm + autorun.inf + msword.exe` wrapped in a "browser evaluator"

I looked into this and... holy crap! We are there. Not for modern programs quite yet, sure, but this is amazing. You can use Windows 2000 from your browser.

https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows2000

I think you are looking for Shadow.

https://shadow.goose.icu

Or just the whole kitchen sink. Why not?

http://copy.sh/v86/?profile=windows98

Also: https://github.com/copy/v86 - more productized browser x86 runtime, used by eg https://github.com/snaplet/postgres-wasm

Wonder if you could put all those databases in a Linux image and boot it using v86 [0], eliminating the need for a server.

[0] https://github.com/copy/v86

Trying it out in https://copy.sh/v86/?profile=kolibrios , it's also clearly a love letter to Windows 95 in particular. That could be an unstated goal here, create a very particular PC experience under very particular constraints. I don't know anything about the creator but it's very possible that this kind of work was actually their career in the 90s.

It's incredible how much work was done. Maybe this should be an internet curiosity like how TempleOS has become, though Terry's personality was a unique factor.

hmm, why would people still use VMWare? Isn't vbox open source, or even things such as https://copy.sh/v86/ would do most virtualization trick now days?

Oh, there are more OSes one can use at the parent page:

https://copy.sh/v86/

My highlights:

- First version of Windows (1.01)

- SerenityOS <3

- and even ReactOS