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Dropbox Open Sources DivANS: a Compression Algorithm In Rust Compiled To WASM (dropbox.com)
Slashdot reader danielrh writes: DivANS is a new compression algorithm developed at Dropbox that can be denser than Brotli, 7zip or zstd at the cost of compression and decompression speed. The code uses some of the new vector intrinsics in Rust and is multithreaded. It has a demo running in the browser.
One of the new ideas is that it has an Intermediate Representation, like a compiler, and that lets developers mashup different compression algorithms and build compression optimizers that run over the IR. The project is looking for community involvement and experimentation.
One of the new ideas is that it has an Intermediate Representation, like a compiler, and that lets developers mashup different compression algorithms and build compression optimizers that run over the IR. The project is looking for community involvement and experimentation.
What's the Weissman score?
I like Dropbox and I'm sure they have a nice algorithm, but . . .
Does nobody remember the ultimate compression algorithm from 1995 that could scrunch any amount of data to less than 1024 bytes. The DataFiles/16 program got quite a lot of publicity for WEB Technologies.
As I recall there were some inconveniences; for instance for really serious compression one had to run the software multiple times- compress, then compress the resulting file, then compress that resulting file. Nevertheless that was a lot of compression! There were minor technical glitches. For example, the decompressed file was quite unlike the original.
...omphaloskepsis often...