Rust in Production Matthias Endler

In the season premier we talk to none other than Daniel Stenberg! We focus on integrating Rust modules in curl, their benefits, ways in which Rust and Rust crates helped improve curl, but also how curl helped those crates, and where curl is used in the official Rust toolchain. Along the way we also learn about the early history of curl and Rust, which section of your car's owner's-manual you should "re"-read, some weird HTTP edge-cases, and Daniel's experience in open-source maintainership.And don't forget: have fun!

Imagine you're faced with the challenge to build a system that can handle billions of recyclable items per year with the goal of being better than a human at identifying what can be recycled. Material classification is a complex problem that requires a lot of data and a lot of processing power and it is a cutting-edge field of research. Carters Schultz and his colleagues at AMP chose Rust to build the core of this system -- and it worked "shockingly well". In this interview, Carter, charismatic and witty, shares his experience of getting your hands dirty with Rust, and building a cutting-edge production-ready system, which can be now replicated across the world.

There are probably only a handful of open-source projects that had a bigger impact on the world than Mozilla Thunderbird. The email client has been around for over two decades and has been a staple for many users (me included). Dealing with a legacy codebase that servers millions of users is no easy feat. The team at MZLA, a subsidiary of Mozilla, has been working hard to modernize the core of Thunderbird by writing new parts in Rust. In this episode, I talk to Brendan Abolivier, a software engineer at MZLA, about the challenges of working on a legacy codebase, the new Rust-based Exchange protocol support, which is the first new protocol in Thunderbird in over a decade, and the future of Thunderbird.

The idea of smart robots automating away boring household chores sounds enticing, yet these devices rarely work as advertised: they get stuck, they break down, or are security nightmares. And so it's refreshing to see a company like Matic taking a different approach by attempting to build truly smart, reliable, and privacy-respecting robots. They use Rust for 95% of their codebase, and use camera vision to navigate, vacuum, and mop floors.
I sit down with Eric Seppanen, Software Engineer at Matic, to learn about vertical integration in robotics, on-device sensor processing, large Rust codebases, and why Rust is a great language for the problem space.

It has become a trope by now: "Cars are computers on wheels." In modern cars, not only the infotainment system but also the engine, brakes, and steering wheel are controlled by software. Better make sure that software is safe. Alexandru Radovici is a Software Engineer at OxidOS, a company that builds a secure, open-source operating system for cars built on Rust and Tock. We talk about the challenges of certifying Rust code for the automotive industry and the new possibilities with Rust-based car software.

For our very first episode, we welcome a special guest, Paul Dix, the CTO of InfluxData.He starts by giving us an overview of InfluxDB, an open source time series database used by developers to track server and application data. He takes us back to the early days of InfluxDB and explains how it came into existence, starting with the challenges they faced with their initial SaaS application and how they made the decision to repurpose their infrastructure and create this open source database. Paul also sheds light on the popularity of the programming language Go, which had a significant influence on their decision to use it for their project.He takes us through the journey of InfluxDB's development and the improvements that have been made over the years. He emphasizes the enhancements made in versions 0.11 and 1.0 to improve performance and query capabilities. Moreover, he shares their decision to explore using Rust for certain parts of the project and the positive impact it has had. Moving forward, the conversation delves into the challenges of managing high volumes of data in time series databases.Paul talks about the solutions they implemented, such as using BoltDB and developing the time-structured merge tree storage engine. We then dive into the decision to rewrite InfluxDB in Rust and the benefits it offers. He explains the improved performance, concurrency, and error handling that Rust brings to the table. Paul goes on to discuss the development process and how the engineering team has embraced Rust across their projects.As the conversation progresses, we touch on the performance improvements in InfluxDB 3 and the future plans for the database. Paul shares their vision of incorporating additional features and integrating with other tools and languages. He also mentions InfluxDB's involvement in open-source projects like Apache Aero Rust and Data Fusion, highlighting their ambition to extend beyond metric data. Paul concludes the conversation by discussing the standards and libraries in analytics, the role of Apache Iceberg, and the collaboration among data and analytics companies. He provides advice for getting started with Rust and InfluxDB, urging listeners to engage in hands-on projects and learn from books and online documentation.Thank you, Paul, for sharing your insights and expertise.