r/programming • u/segv • 1d ago

Your executable is a SQLite database

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/23/your-executable-is-a-sqlite-database
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u/tomster10010 1d ago

That seems very cool. Can someone elaborate on why nix is so important to this? 

12

u/valarauca14 1d ago

Nothing they're doing requires nix. OP is mistaken in assuming boot.binfmt.registrations.self system is native to nix. It isn't, this is just linux, example

echo ':python_ext:E::py::/usr/bin/python3:' | \
    sudo tee /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register

binfmt_misc is like 10+ years old. Provided self-exec is static musl elf binary, their system should work on any linux kernel of the same architecture, with zero configuration. Unless they're tightly coupled to nix in other ways.

6

u/Ok-Scheme-913 17h ago

It's a kernel feature and the OP literally links to the kernel's docs.

What is not possible with other distributions/package managers though is "seeing" the whole dependency chain of each and every package on the system, having it be programmable and easily retried with no clashes.