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Philip O'Toole — Engineering manager at Google, creator of rqlite
Philip O'Toole
philipotoole.comThe moat was the sheer accumulated investment embodied in a working system.
An engineering manager at Google who writes about distributed systems, database design, and the changing landscape of software development. Philip is the creator of rqlite — a distributed relational database built on SQLite and Raft — and his posts draw on years of building and maintaining real infrastructure. He writes with a practitioner's clarity about everything from Git worktrees to how AI coding tools are reshaping the competitive dynamics of open source.
Written by Philip O'Toole.
Regular
Publishes weekly or bi-weekly
1
Independent Blog
English
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Native Linux packages for rqlite
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source, distributed relational database built on SQLite and Raft. Starting with v9.4.1 rqlite now ships native Linux packages (.deb and .rpm) for easier installation and upgrades. Both amd64 and arm64 packages are available.
The source code was the moat. But not anymore
Last week I started using some of the new coding agents properly. Not in a careful, experimental way, but properly — for three days on rqlite. Claude Code. Copilot CLI. Tools I had yet to fully integrate into how I write software. If you know the Star Trek episode The Doomsday Machine — where Kirk finds Commodore Decker alone on his wrecked ship — there is a moment that has always stayed with me. Kirk asks Decker where his crew is. Decker says they are on the third planet. Kir...
Discovering git worktrees
While working with Claude Code, I quickly needed it to operate on multiple versions of the rqlite codebase at the same time. Cloning the repository repeatedly would have worked, but it felt wasteful. Instead, today I learned about git worktree. It allows a single Git repository to have multiple checked-out working directories, each on its own branch, while sharing the same object store. The result is fast setup, low disk use, and clean isolation between versions. For agents that need to explore...
Agentic coding with Claude and Copilot
After many months of direct ChatGPT use, I’ve finally started coding with the help of Copilot and Claude Code. It’s definitely an intriguing experience. The biggest difference so far? I’m going to hit my Claude Code Pro limits pretty quickly, whereas my Copilot Premium Requests are far from exhausted.
Why talking to LLMs has improved my thinking
I’ve been surprised by – and enjoy – one aspect of using large language models more than any other. They often put into words things I have long understood, but could not write down clearly. When that happens, it feels less like learning something new and more like recognition. A kind of “ok, yeah” moment. I have not seen this effect discussed much. I also think it has improved how I think. Much of what we know is tacit Take my own job. As programmers and developers, we build...
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Practical engineering writing from someone who builds distributed databases and thinks carefully about how the craft is changing.