Faster interpreters in Go: Catching up with C++

This post details the transition of Vitess's SQL evaluation engine from an AST-based interpreter to a bytecode virtual machine. It explains the rationale behind this shift, focusing on performance improvements and maintainability. Key technical contributions include the implementation of static typing for SQL expressions derived from semantic analysis, enabling pre-specialized bytecode, and the design of an efficient Go-based VM loop. The post also highlights the discovery of upstream MySQL bugs through comprehensive testing.