Programming Facts
Bite-sized, interesting facts about the programming languages, frameworks, and tools developers use every day.
A Single Portable File Is the Entire SQLite Database
SQLite stores the entire database, every table, index, and row, in a single cross-platform file that works across architectures and byte orders with no server to configure.
Kotlin Became Google's Preferred Language for Android in 2019
On 7 May 2019 Google made Kotlin the preferred language for Android app development, after first-class support landed in 2017. See how interoperability and tooling defaults won the ecosystem.
React's Early Prototype Was Called FaxJS and First Shipped in Instagram's Web App
Before React went public in 2013, Jordan Walke's prototype went by the name FaxJS and proved itself on Facebook's News Feed and Instagram's web app from 2011 to 2012.
Flutter Began as the Sky Project at Google in 2015
Flutter began as the Sky project at Google in 2015, a rendering experiment first shown at the Dart Developer Summit. See how that performance focused prototype grew into a cross platform framework.
Bun Is Written in the Zig Systems Programming Language
Bun, the fast JavaScript runtime and toolkit, is written largely in the Zig systems programming language. See why that low level foundation explains the speed and what it means for developers.
The PostgreSQL Mascot Is an Elephant Named Slonik
PostgreSQL's mascot is an elephant named Slonik, a Russian word for little elephant. Discover the story and what the friendly mascot says about the database community.
Lua Was Built as a Tiny, Embeddable Extension Language
Lua was deliberately designed as a tiny, embeddable extension language fitting in roughly thirty thousand lines of portable C. See how that small footprint and clean C API let it live inside games, Redis, and Nginx.
Why nvm Is a Single POSIX Bash Script, Not a Compiled Binary
nvm is a single POSIX-compliant bash script rather than a compiled binary or daemon. Understand why a shell script is the technically correct way to manage per-user Node versions.
Python Was Designed as a Successor to ABC, Aimed at Unix and C Hackers
Python was conceived as a descendant of the ABC language, aimed squarely at Unix and C hackers. See how that founding goal explains Python's readability, import system, and C integration today.