Stable linking with Farid Zakaria

Pre-roll transcript:

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Summary (generated)

In this conversation, Shahar "Dawn" Or interviews Farid Zakaria, a software engineer and PhD candidate, about his experiences with Nix, a powerful tool for reproducible software development. Farid shares his journey of learning Nix, its infectious nature, and its application in enterprise environments. He discusses the concept of innovation tokens, the challenges of teaching Nix, and how it has influenced his PhD research. The conversation also delves into dynamic linking, performance improvements, and the potential of Nix as a research platform. In this conversation, Farid Zakaria discusses the challenges and innovations in software performance, particularly focusing on application start-up times and the implications of dynamic versus static linking. He introduces the concept of stable linking, which aims to enhance software responsiveness and security while addressing historical decisions in software development. The discussion also touches on the potential for broader applications beyond C/C++, the importance of auditing in software, and the cultural shifts needed in the software development community to adopt these innovations.

Takeaways (generated)

Nix empowers reproducible software development.
The journey to learning Nix can be challenging but rewarding.
Nix is increasingly being adopted in enterprise environments.
Innovation tokens are crucial for evaluating new technologies.
Teaching Nix effectively requires understanding its practical applications.
Nix can significantly improve development environments.
Dynamic linking presents unique challenges that Nix can address.
Nix allows for performance optimizations in software applications.
Nix serves as a valuable research platform for PhD candidates.
The community around Nix is diverse and supportive.
Application start-up times can be significantly improved with optimization techniques.
Reducing the number of symbols in applications can lead to faster performance.
Stable linking offers a way to enhance software security and performance.
Dynamic linking has historical roots in resource constraints and code reuse.
The future of software may see faster responsiveness across all applications.
Auditing software for compatibility and security is crucial in modern development.
Compiler innovations can lead to substantial speed improvements in software builds.
C and C++ are not the only languages that can benefit from these linking techniques.
Cultural shifts in the software community are necessary for adopting new practices.
Practical implementation of stable linking could revolutionize how software is built and run.

Chapters (generated)

00:00 Introduction and Background
02:14 Exploring Nix and Its Community
05:00 The Transition from Hobbyist to Enterprise
06:47 Nix's Infectious Nature and Deployment Challenges
09:18 The Appeal of Nix for Development Environments
11:48 Innovation Tokens and Nix's Value Proposition
13:57 Bringing Nix to Looker and Google
15:39 Teaching Nix and Overcoming Adoption Hurdles
18:33 The Role of Nix in PhD Research
21:04 Dynamic Linking and Performance Optimization
23:41 Benchmarking and Results
26:19 Conclusion and Future Directions
48:14 The Impact of Speed on Software Development
55:34 The Future of Dynamic Linking and Its Implications
58:49 Stable Linking: A New Paradigm
01:05:04 Revisiting the Rationale Behind Dynamic Linking
01:11:15 Implementing Stable Linking in Nixpkgs

https://fzakaria.com/

https://www.confluent.io/
https://kafka.apache.org/
https://bazel.build/
https://www.ucsc.edu/
https://fulltimenix.com/episodes/domen-kozar
https://fulltimenix.com/episodes/jonathan-ringer
https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf
https://cloud.google.com/looker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGEY6ABQUBw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkgsFbwYdYA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZKFe4mCkr4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQstiX7H8MQ&t=183s

https://spack.io/
https://www.debian.org/
https://fedoraproject.org/
“apt-get mindset”
https://brew.sh/
https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#haskell
https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#python
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/ld.so.8.html
https://github.com/nix-community/nix-ld
https://supercomputing.org/

https://github.com/fzakaria/shrinkwrap
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/207061

https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.06716

How To Write Shared Libraries by Ulrich Drepper

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_space_layout_randomization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Offset_Table

https://clang.llvm.org/
https://www.openoffice.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVM_Express

https://musl.libc.org/
https://www.alpinelinux.org/
https://cve.mitre.org/
https://github.com/openssl/openssl#overview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format
https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#setup-hook-autopatchelfhook
https://guix.gnu.org/

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