Overview
MiniDB is a toy relational database engine written entirely from scratch in Rust. The goal was never to replace PostgreSQL -- it was to deeply understand how databases actually work under the hood.
What It Implements
- B-tree based storage engine
- Basic SQL parser (SELECT, INSERT, CREATE TABLE)
- Page-based disk I/O with buffer pool
- Write-ahead logging (WAL) for crash recovery
- Simple query planner with sequential and index scans
What I Learned
Building a database from scratch taught me more about systems programming than any book or course. Understanding page layouts, buffer management, and transaction isolation at this level changed how I think about data.