Scalar Replacement of Aggregates: How "Copy to Locals" Unlocks the Compiler
How copying a small aggregate into local variables exposes Scalar Replacement of Aggregates to LLVM, letting hot loops keep state in registers instead of repeatedly loading and storing through a pointer—illustrated with Zig/Rust reproductions and TigerBeetle's AEGIS-128L speedup.
Why x86 Zeroes a Register With `xor eax, eax`
A practical reference on why x86 zeroes a register with xor reg, reg - breaking down the size and dependency advantages over mov, CPU zeroing idiom recognition, and the subtle flags tradeoff, with real code examples and tradeoffs
Set-Associative Caches: Trading Global Optimality for Predictable Speed
How set-associative caches trade global eviction freedom for bounded, cache-line-friendly lookups, and how TigerBeetle's CacheMap and a SIMD search optimization (PR #3200) put that trade-off to work.
Building a custom Bitset - A study in access-pattern-driven data structure choice
Shows that data-structure choice must be driven by access pattern, not category: a custom bitset with SBO and virtual-mutation hashing is strongly justified for a hot-path DFS that repeatedly clones, hashes, and probes without committing, while the standard-library DynamicBitSet is the right tool for a simple one-shot debug assertion
Zig Allocation Patterns
A practical reference on Zig allocation patterns - breaking down the aware (unmanaged) vs. owning (managed) ownership models, arenas, index arenas, and other key idioms used in porcupine-zig, with real code examples and tradeoffs
Why Zig’s Io Feels Like an Effect System (Without Being One)
Explains how Zig’s Io gives you most of the engineering wins of effect systems (no function colouring, swappable interpreters) without any type-level tracking — here’s how it stacks up against Scala 3 Caprese and Kyo across the full design spectrum of effects
Evaluating PBT Frameworks: How Proptest and Hegel Differ in Algebraic Expressivity
Explains why it’s useful to visualize how these two libraries actually think about the data they generate. Proptest views the world as a static graph of possibilities, while Hegel views it as a live conversation
The RAII Drop-Guard Pattern in Rust
Explains RAII in Rust as the primary, statically-enforced mechanism for resource management.
Dyn-Compatible Async Traits in Rust: Why the Manual Boxed Future Idiom is Required
Explains why async fn in traits breaks object safety for dynamic dispatch and how the explicit pinned boxed future return type, combined with 'static + Send bounds and pre-move cloning, restores dyn compatibility for service-oriented trait objects