SQLite is the most deployed database engine in the world -- yet it was locked behind C expertise, native toolchains, and platform-specific binaries. The knowledge to reimplement it -- B-trees, bytecode compilation, virtual machine execution -- was reserved for specialists. AI breaks that barrier. It takes something powerful locked behind expertise and infrastructure and puts it in everyone's hands. And yes, sqlite-purerb changes that. Built with Claude Code, we reimplemented SQLite's internals entirely in pure Ruby: the pager, B-tree, bytecode compiler, and VDBE. Claude Code made this feasible. It navigated SQLite's C source, translated low-level algorithms into idiomatic Ruby, and drove a test-driven workflow validated against the reference implementation. This project joins Ruby's "Rewrite C in Ruby" revolution. Pure Ruby means true portability -- no compiler needed.
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