1. C Is Best
Note: Sections 2.0 and 3.0 of this article were added in response to comments on Hacker News and Reddit.
Since its inception on 2000-05-29, SQLite has been implemented in generic C. C was and continues to be the best language for implementing a software library like SQLite. There are no plans to recode SQLite in any other programming language at this time.
The reasons why C is the best language to implement SQLite include:
Performance
Compatibility
Low-dependency
Stability
1.1. Performance
An intensively used low-level library like SQLite needs to be fast. (And SQLite is fast, see Internal Versus External BLOBs and 35% Faster Than The Filesystem for examples.)
... continue reading