IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

A tail-call interpreter in (nightly) Rust

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Specialized VMs can outperform hand‑coded implementations while yielding smaller binaries

"resulting VM outperforms both my previous Rust implementation and my hand‑coded ARM64 assembly" – dathinab
"like e.g. two independent research projects into how to have better (fast, more compact) serialization in rust ended up with something like a VM/interpreter for serialization instructions leading to both higher performance and more compact code size while still being capable of supporting similar feature sets as serde" – dathinab

2. The sweet spot is a balance between monomorphisation and dynamic dispatch

"Neither allays monomorphisation nor dynamic dispatch but a balance between taking advantage of the strength of both. And specialized mini VMs are in a certain way an extra flexible form of dynamic dispatch." – dathinab

3. Mini‑VMs are flexible but largely experimental for production use > "(1b): They have been experimental research project, not sure if any of them got published to GitHub, non are suited for usage in production or similar." – dathinab

🚀 Project Ideas

Generating project ideas…

[MonoSpecVM]

Summary

  • A lightweight Rust crate that compiles custom serialization/deserialization instructions into a specialized mini‑VM, delivering both high performance and compact code.
  • Balances monomorphisation and dynamic dispatch to avoid the trade‑offs of each approach.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Rust developers building high‑throughput serialization pipelines
Core Feature Runtime‑editable instruction set that generates specialized executor code at compile time
Tech Stack Rust, LLVM IR, optional wasm backend
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: SaaS subscription for enterprise teams

Notes

  • HN readers praised the “absurdly efficient” mini‑VMs that outperform hand‑coded assembly, indicating strong demand for production‑ready tools.
  • Potential for integration into existing serde‑based workflows and for extending to other data formats.

[DataFlowMiniVM]

Summary

  • A generic, embeddable mini‑VM framework that lets users define custom processing instructions (e.g., transformation, filtering) and execute them at near‑native speed.
  • Targets performance‑critical data pipelines and serialization layers.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Engineers working with streaming data, ETL, and custom protocol handling
Core Feature Plug‑and‑play instruction DSL compiled to a portable mini‑VM bytecode interpreter
Tech Stack C++17/20, WASM for sandboxing, optional Python bindings
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue-ready: usage‑based cloud pricing (pay‑per‑execution)

Notes

  • Discussion highlighted that “specialized mini‑VMs are an extra flexible form of dynamic dispatch,” a use case directly addressed by this framework.
  • Appeals to those seeking a production‑grade alternative to experimental research prototypes mentioned in the thread.

[AdaptableCodegenVM]

Summary- A Rust library that auto‑generates specialized instruction executors for struct fields, merging monomorphisation benefits with the flexibility of a mini‑VM.

  • Provides compile‑time specialization without the overhead of full dynamic dispatch.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Rust library authors who need fast, type‑safe serialization and validation
Core Feature Attribute‑driven codegen that emits a tiny VM for each struct, configurable per field
Tech Stack Rust macro system, proc‑macros, SIMD intrinsics
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Community commenters noted that “the best approach is … a balance between taking advantage of the strength of both” monomorphisation and dynamic dispatch, which this project embodies.
  • Would be welcomed for reducing boilerplate and improving code size in large Rust projects.

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