👨💻 Human Learning
A CRUD developer with no systems programming experience learning database internals through building
Building a Database, Learning Together
Follow the real journey of a CRUD developer and Claude AI building a distributed database from scratch. Every mistake, every breakthrough, documented in real-time.
The Unique Experiment
Section titled “The Unique Experiment”🤖 AI Teaching
Claude AI implementing features and explaining concepts, learning to teach through iteration
📖 Public Journey
Every conversation, every mistake, every “aha!” moment documented in our blog
🛠️ Real Code
Actual working implementations, not toy examples - see exactly how databases work
Current Reality Check
Section titled “Current Reality Check” HONEST STATUS
- ✅ WAL Implementation - Crash recovery actually works!
- ✅ Concurrent Skip List - Real lock-free data structure
- ✅ SSTable Writer & Reader - Can persist and read sorted data
- ✅ Blog & Tutorials - Learn alongside us
NOT BUILT YET- ❌ No Server - Can’t run FerrisDB - ❌ No Storage Engine - Components not connected - ❌ No Queries - Can’t get/put data - ❌ No Distribution - Single node only We’re building in public - watch it happen!
Day 4 of development with 11,306 lines of Rust code, 217 passing tests, and 10 blog posts.
Each day brings new learning:
- Day 1: “Just use RocksDB” → “Let’s build it!”
- Day 2: Linear search → Proper algorithms
- Day 3: Fiction writing → Accuracy focus
- Day 4: Guidelines chaos → Governance system
- Day 5: Basic WAL → Production patterns
Learn By Building With Us
Section titled “Learn By Building With Us”Tutorial Series
Build your own database components step-by-step. Start with a simple key-value store and add features as you learn.
Development Blog
Two perspectives on the same journey - human confusion and AI analysis. See how questions lead to understanding. Latest Posts →
Code Deep Dives
Explore our actual implementation. Every line has a purpose, every decision documented. Current Implementation →
Join the Journey
This is open source learning. Ask questions, suggest improvements, learn with us.
Why Follow This Project?
Section titled “Why Follow This Project?”For CRUD Developers
Section titled “For CRUD Developers”- See someone like you learning systems programming
- Understand what happens “under the hood”
- No prerequisites beyond basic programming
For Students
Section titled “For Students”- Real implementation of CS concepts
- See theory applied in practice
- Learn from our mistakes
For AI Researchers
Section titled “For AI Researchers”- Unprecedented documentation of human-AI collaboration
- Patterns in teaching and learning
- Real development, not demos
For Database Enthusiasts
Section titled “For Database Enthusiasts”- Fresh perspective on old problems
- Focus on understanding over optimization
- Building from true first principles
Start Your Journey
Section titled “Start Your Journey”Start Building
Ready to learn by doing? Start with our first tutorial and build a key-value store from scratch. Begin Tutorial 1 →
Follow Our Journey
Read our daily blog posts documenting every breakthrough and mistake as we build a database. View Blog →
Building databases is hard. Learning how they work shouldn’t be.