Rust in Production

Roc with Richard Feldman

Building a new programming language from scratch is a monumental undertaking. In this episode, we talk to Richard Feldman, creator of the Roc programming language, about building a functional language that is fast, friendly, and functional. We discuss why the Roc team moved away from using Rust as a host language and instead is in the process of migrating to Zig. What was the decision-making process like? What can Rust learn this decision? And how does Zig compare to Rust for this kind of systems programming work? About Roc Roc is a fast, friendly, functional programming language currently in alpha development. It's a single-paradigm functional language with 100% type inference that compiles to machine code or WebAssembly. Roc takes inspiration from Elm but extends those ideas beyond the frontend, introducing innovations like platforms vs applications, opportunistic mutation, and purity inference. The language features static dispatch, a small set of simple primitives that work well together, and excellent compiler error messages. Roc is already being used in production by companies like Vendr, and is supported by a nonprofit foundation with corporate and individual sponsors. About Richard Feldman Richard Feldman is the creator of the Roc programming language and author of "Elm in Action." He works at Zed Industries and has extensive experience with functional programming, particularly Elm. Richard is also the host of Software Unscripted, a weekly podcast featuring casual conversations about code with programming language creators and industry experts. He's a frequent conference speaker and teacher, with courses available on Frontend Masters. Richard has been a longtime contributor to the functional programming community and previously worked at NoRedInk building large-scale Elm applications. Links From The Episode * Zig [https://ziglang.org/] - Better than Rust? * Rust in Production: Zed [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s03e01-zed/] - Our interview with Richard's colleague with more details about Zed * Richards blogpost about migrating from Rust to Zig [https://gist.github.com/rtfeldman/77fb430ee57b42f5f2ca973a3992532f] - Sent in by many listeners * Elm [https://elm-lang.org/] - Initial inspiration for Roc * NoRedInk [https://www.noredink.com/] - Richard's first experience with Elm * Haskell [https://www.haskell.org/] - A workable Elm on the backend substitute * OCaml [https://ocaml.org/] - Functional language, but pure functions only encouraged * F# [https://fsharp.org/] - Similar shortcomings as OCaml * Evan Czaplicki [https://github.com/evancz] - Creator of Elm * Ghostty [https://ghostty.org/] - Terminal emulator from Mitchel Hashimoto with lots of code contributions in Zig * bumpref [https://github.com/corrode/bumpref] - A tiny Rust crate that came out of this discussion, providing Arc::bump(), which is an alias for clone(). * RAII [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_acquisition_is_initialization] - Resource acquisition is initialization, developed for C++, now a core part of Rust * Frontend Masters: The Rust Programming Language [https://frontendmasters.com/courses/rust/] - Richard's course teaching Rust * Rust by Example: From and Into [https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/conversion/from_into.html] - Traits for ergonomic initialising of objects in Rust * The Rust Programming Language: Lifetime Annotations on Struct Definitions [https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/ch10-03-lifetime-syntax.html#lifetime-annotations-in-struct-definitions] - Learn from Roc: try to avoid having lifetime type parameters * Rust By Example: Box, stack and heap [https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/std/box.html#box-stack-and-heap] - Putting objects on the heap can slow down your application * Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns] - Seminal book popularising many common patterns in use today, written by the so-called "Gang of Four" * Casey Muratori: The Big OOPs [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo84LFzx5nI] - Game developer explaining why OOP was an obvious mistake for high performance code * Alan Kay [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Kay] - Coined the term "object-oriented" while developing the Smalltalk language in the 70s * Niklaus Wirth [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_Wirth] - Working on Modula, a modular programming language, at the same time * Kotlin [https://kotlinlang.org/] - A new and popular language, basically Java++ * Go [https://go.dev/] - Popular "greenfield" language, i.e. not coupled to an existing language, not using the object oriented paradigm * Cranelift backend for Rust [https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_cranelift] - A faster backend than LLVM, but still not released * Andrew Kelly [https://andrewkelley.me/] - Creator of Zig * Software Unscripted [https://pod.link/1602572955] - Richard's Podcast * GPUI [https://www.gpui.rs/] - Zed's own UI crate * Structure of Arrays vs Array of structures [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AoS_and_SoA] - A big source of unsafe code in the Rust implementation of Roc * The Zig Programming Language: comptime [https://ziglang.org/documentation/0.15.2/#comptime] - Zig's replacement for Rust's proc-macros, with much broader utility * crabtime [https://docs.rs/crabtime/latest/crabtime/] - Comptime crate for Rust * Roc [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology)] - Roc's namesake, the mythical bird * Rust in Production: Tweede Golf [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s01e05-tweede-golf/] - Podcast episode with Volkert de Vries, one of the first contributors to Roc Official Links * Roc Programming Language [https://www.roc-lang.org/] * Roc on GitHub [https://github.com/roc-lang/roc] * Richard Feldman on GitHub [https://github.com/rtfeldman] * Richard Feldman on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rtfeldman/] * Richard Feldman on X [https://x.com/rtfeldman] * Software Unscripted Podcast [https://pod.link/1602572955]

Cloudflare with Edward Wang & Kevin Guthrie

How do you build a system that handles 90 million requests per second? That’s the scale that Cloudflare operates at, processing roughly 25% of all internet traffic through their global network of 330+ edge locations. In this episode, we talk to Kevin Guthrie and Edward Wang from Cloudflare about Pingora, their open-source Rust-based proxy that replaced nginx across their entire infrastructure. We’ll find out why they chose Rust for mission-critical systems handling such massive scale, the technical challenges of replacing battle-tested infrastructure, and the lessons learned from “oxidizing” one of the internet’s largest networks. About Cloudflare Cloudflare is a global network designed to make everything you connect to the Internet secure, private, fast, and reliable. Their network spans 330+ cities worldwide and handles approximately 25% of all internet traffic. Cloudflare provides a range of services including DDoS protection, CDN, DNS, and serverless computing—all built on infrastructure that processes billions of requests every day. About Kevin Guthrie Kevin Guthrie is a Software Architect and Principal Distributed Systems Engineer at Cloudflare working on Pingora and the production services built upon it. He specializes in performance optimization at scale. Kevin has deep expertise in building high-performance systems and has contributed to open-source projects that power critical internet infrastructure. About Edward Wang Edward Wang is a Systems Engineer at Cloudflare who has been instrumental in developing Pingora, Cloudflare’s Rust-based HTTP proxy framework. He co-authored the announcement of Pingora’s open source release. Edward’s work focuses on performance optimization, security, and building developer-friendly APIs for network programming. Links From The Episode * Pingora [https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora] - Serving 90+ million requests per second (7e12 per day) at Cloudflare * How we built Pingora [https://blog.cloudflare.com/how-we-built-pingora-the-proxy-that-connects-cloudflare-to-the-internet/] - Cloudflare blog post on Pingora’s architecture * Open sourcing Pingora [https://blog.cloudflare.com/pingora-open-source/] - Announcement of Pingora’s open source release * Rust in Production: Oxide [http://127.0.0.1:1111/podcast/s03e03-oxide/] - Interview with Steve Klabnik * Anycast [https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/glossary/anycast-network/] - Routing traffic to the closest point of presence * Lua [https://www.lua.org/] - A small, embeddable scripting language * nginx [https://nginx.org/] - The HTTP server and reverse proxy that Pingora replaced * coredump [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_dump] - File capturing the memory of a running process for debugging * OpenResty [https://openresty.org/en/nginx.html] - Extending nginx with Lua * Oxy [https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-oxy/] - Another proxy developed at Cloudflare in Rust * Ashley Williams [https://github.com/ashleygwilliams] - Famous Rust developer who worked at Cloudflare at one point * Yuchen Wu [https://github.com/eaufavor] - One of the first drivers of Pingora development * Andrew Hauck [https://github.com/andrewhavck/] - Early driver of Pingora development * Pingora Peak [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingora_Peak] - The actual mountain in Wyoming where a Cloudflare product manager almost fell off * shellflip [https://github.com/cloudflare/shellflip] - Graceful process restarter in Rust, used by Pingora * tableflip [https://github.com/cloudflare/tableflip] - Go library that inspired shellflip * bytes [https://github.com/tokio-rs/bytes] - Reference-counted byte buffers for Rust * The Cargo Book: Specifying dependencies from git repositories [https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-dependencies.html#specifying-dependencies-from-git-repositories] - Who needs a registry anyway? * cargo audit [https://github.com/rustsec/rustsec] - Security vulnerability scanner for Rust dependencies * epoll [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoll] - Async I/O API in Linux * Tokio [https://tokio.rs/] - The async runtime powering Pingora * mio [https://github.com/tokio-rs/mio] - Tokio’s abstraction over epoll and other async I/O OS interfaces * Noah Kennedy [https://github.com/Noah-Kennedy] - An actual Tokio expert on the Pingora team * Rain: Cancelling Async Rust [https://youtu.be/zrv5Cy1R7r4] - RustConf 2025 talk with many examples of pitfalls * foundations [https://github.com/cloudflare/foundations] - Cloudflare’s foundational crate for Rust project that exposes Tokio internal metrics * io_uring [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_uring] - Shiny new kernel toy for async I/O * ThePrimeTime: Cloudflare - Trie Hard - Big Savings On Cloud [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV4rLfpidIk&t=111s] - “It’s not a millie, it’s not a billie, it’s a trillie” * valuable [https://github.com/tokio-rs/valuable] - Invaluable crate for introspection of objects for logging and tracing * bytes [https://github.com/tokio-rs/bytes] - Very foundational crate for reference counted byte buffers * DashMap [https://github.com/xacrimon/dashmap] - Concurrent HashMap with as little lock contention as possible * Prossimo [https://www.memorysafety.org/about/] - Initiative for memory safety in critical internet infrastructure * River [https://www.memorysafety.org/initiative/reverse-proxy/] - Prossimo-funded reverse proxy based on Pingora * Rustls [https://github.com/rustls/rustls] - Memory-safe TLS implementation in Rust, also funded by Prossimo * http crate [https://docs.rs/http/latest/http/] - HTTP types for Rust * h2 [https://github.com/hyperium/h2] - HTTP/2 implementation in Rust * hyper [https://hyper.rs/] - Fast HTTP implementation for Rust * ClickHouse Rust client [https://clickhouse.com/docs/integrations/rust] - Official Rust client by Paul Loyd * Pingap [https://crates.io/crates/pingap] - Reverse proxy built on Pingora * PR: Add Rustls to Pingora [https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora/pull/336] - by Harald Gutmann * PR: Add s2n-tls to Pingora [https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora/pull/675] - by Bryan Gilbert Official Links * Cloudflare [https://www.cloudflare.com/] * Cloudflare Blog [https://blog.cloudflare.com/] * Pingora on GitHub [https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora] * Edward Wang’s Blog Posts [https://blog.cloudflare.com/author/edward-h-wang/] * Kevin Guthrie’s Blog Posts [https://blog.cloudflare.com/author/kevin-guthrie/]

Scythe with Andrew Tinka

Building autonomous robots that operate safely in the real world is one of the most challenging engineering problems today. When those robots carry sharp blades and work around people, the margin for error is razor-thin. In this episode, we talk to Andrew Tinka from Scythe Robotics about how they use Rust to build autonomous electric mowers for commercial landscaping. We discuss the unique challenges of robotics software, why Rust is an ideal choice for cutting-edge safety-critical systems, and what it takes to keep autonomous machines running smoothly in the field. About Scythe Robotics Scythe Robotics is building autonomous electric mowers for commercial landscaping. Their machines combine advanced sensors, computer vision, and sophisticated path planning to autonomously trim large outdoor spaces while ensuring safety around people and obstacles. By leveraging Rust throughout their software stack, Scythe achieves the reliability and safety guarantees required for autonomous systems breaking new ground in uncontrolled environments. The company is headquartered in Colorado and is reshaping how commercial properties are maintained. About Andrew Tinka Andrew is the Director of Software Engineering at Scythe Robotics, where he drives the development of autonomous systems that power their robotic mowers. He specializes in planning and control for large fleets of mobile robots, with over a decade of experience in multi-agent planning technologies that helped pave the way at Amazon Robotics. Andrew has cultivated deep expertise in building safety-critical software for real-world robotics applications and is passionate about using Rust to create reliable, performant systems. His work covers everything from low-level embedded systems to high-level planning algorithms. Links From The Episode * Ski trails rating [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piste#North_America,_Australia_and_New_Zealand] - A difficulty rating system common in Colorado * NVIDIA Jetson [https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson-modules] - Combined ARM CPU with a GPU for AI workloads at the heart of every Scythe robot * The Rust Book: Variables and Mutability [https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/ch03-01-variables-and-mutability.html#variables-and-mutability] - Immutability is the default in Rust * Jon Gjengset: Sguaba [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kESBAiTYMoQ] - A type safe spatial maths library * The Rust Book: Inheritance as a Type System and as Code Sharing [https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/ch18-01-what-is-oo.html#inheritance-as-a-type-system-and-as-code-sharing] - Unlike Java, Rust doesn't have inheritance * Using {..Default::default} when creating structs [https://rust-unofficial.github.io/patterns/idioms/default.html] - The alternative is to initialize each field explicitly * The Rust Book: Refutability [https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/ch19-02-refutability.html] - Rust tells you when you forgot something * Clippy [https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-clippy] - Rust's official linter * Deterministic fleet management for autonomous mobile robots using Rust - Andy Brinkmeyer from Arculus [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-CLgci-e8] - 2024 Oxidize warehouse robot talk with deterministic testing * ROS [https://www.ros.org/] - The Robot Operating System * Ractor [https://slawlor.github.io/ractor/] - A good modern actor framework * Rain: Cancelling Async Rust [https://youtu.be/zrv5Cy1R7r4] - RustConf 2025 talk with many examples of pitfalls Official Links * Scythe Robotics [https://scytherobotics.com/] * Scythe on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/scythe-robotics/] * Scythe on GitHub [https://github.com/scythe-robotics] * Andrew Tinka on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtinka/]

Prime Video with Alexandru Ene

Are you one of over 240 million subscribers of Amazon's Prime Video service? If so, you might be surprised to learn that much of the infrastructure behind Prime Video is built using Rust. They use a single codebase for media players, game consoles, and tablets. In this episode, we sit down with Alexandru Ene, a Principal Engineer at Amazon, to discuss how Rust is used at Prime Video, the challenges they face in building a global streaming service, and the benefits of using Rust for their backend systems. About Prime Video Prime Video is a streaming service offered by Amazon that provides a wide range of movies, TV shows, and original content to its subscribers. With over 240 million subscribers worldwide, Prime Video is one of the largest streaming platforms in the world. In addition to its vast content library, Prime Video also offers features such as offline viewing, 4K streaming, and support for multiple devices. On the backend, Prime Video relies on a variety of technologies to deliver its content, including Rust, which is used for building high-performance and reliable systems that can handle the demands of a global audience. About Alexandru Ene Alexandru worked on the transition of Prime Video's user interface from JavaScript to Rust. He has been with Amazon for over 8 years and previously worked at companies like Ubisoft and EA. He has a background in computer science and is an active open source maintainer. Alexandru lives in London. Links From The Episode * Ferris Makes Emulators Ep.001 - The Journey Begins [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsi9HPcyrU8] - First episode of a famous series where Jake Taylor wrote a Nintendo 64 emulator in Rust from scratch * CMake [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMake] - Very common build system used in C++ applications * Conan [https://conan.io/] - C++ Package Manager community project * C++ Smart Pointers [https://ericlippert.com/2003/09/16/smart-pointers-are-too-smart/] - Still a footgun * Herb Sutter: The Free Lunch Is Over [http://gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.htm] - The seminal 2005 paper that highlights the importance of concurrency, well past C++'s mainstream adoption * Rust in Production: cURL [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s02e01-curl/] - Baseline library used everywhere, written in C, but performant and safe * Prime Video Platforms [https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16775794011] - One app runs on all of these * WebAssembly (WASM) [https://webassembly.org/] - Enabling Rust code with good performance that you can still download and run like JavaScript, avoiding the need for firmware updates on some devices * Entity Component System [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_component_system] - Used in the UI Rust code for pages in the app * Bevy [https://bevy.org/] - Game engine written in Rust * Leptos [https://www.leptos.dev/] - UI framework that makes reactive programming in Rust easier * tokio [https://tokio.rs/] - The de facto standard async runtime for Rust * SIMD [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_instruction,_multiple_data] - A nice feature set some CPUs support * WebAssembly Micro Runtime [https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasm-micro-runtime] - A tiny WASM runtime well suited for IoT platforms * WebAssembly Working Group [https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/wasm/] Official Links * Amazon Prime Video [https://www.primevideo.com] * Rust & WASM for UI: Faster Prime Video on ANY Device - Alexandru Ene, QCon San Francisco 2024 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wcOovoDFMI] * Alexandru Ene on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexene0x0a/] * Alexandru's Blog [https://alexene.dev] * Alexandru Ene on GitHub [https://github.com/AlexEne]

Season 4 Finale

It’s time for another recap including our highlights of Season 4. We’ve been at this for a while now (four seasons, and 32 episodes to be exact). We had guests from a wide range of industries: from Microsoft to Astral, and from password managers to satellite systems. This time, it’s all about using Rust for foundational software, which is software that is critical to a team or even an entire organization. Rust is a great fit for this type of software! We’ll take a break for the summer. In the meantime, we encourage you to catch up on any episodes you might have missed, and to check out the links below. And if you’re interested in using Rust for your own projects, check out our dedicated learn [https://corrode.dev/learn/] page for additional content about Rust adoption or reach out to us [https://corrode.dev/services] directly for a chat. Links From The Episode * 10 Years of Stable Rust: An Infrastructure Story [https://rustfoundation.org/media/10-years-of-stable-rust-an-infrastructure-story/] - Graydon Hoare’s reflection on Rust’s 10th anniversary * Rust For Foundational Software [https://corrode.dev/blog/foundational-software/] - Matthias’ blog post on Rust’s role in foundational software About Us * Simon Brüggen (M3t0r) on GitHub [https://github.com/M3t0r] * Simon Brüggen (M3t0r) on Mastodon [https://hachyderm.io/@m3t0r] * Matthias Endler on Mastodon [https://mastodon.social/@mre] * About corrode Rust Consulting [https://corrode.dev/about] * ‘Rust in Production’ Podcast on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rust-in-production/id1720771330] * ‘Rust in Production’ Podcast on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/0Hf6gWrzpSzXp1X0cebbsT] All Episodes of Season 4 If you missed any of the previous episodes, now is a great time to catch up: * Episode 1: Microsoft with Victor Ciura [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e01-microsoft] * Episode 2: Svix with Tom Hacohen [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e02-svix] * Episode 3: Astral with Charlie Marsh [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e03-astral] * Episode 4: Rust with Niko Matsakis [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e04-rust] * Episode 5: Tembo with Adam Hendel [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e05-tembo] * Episode 6: 1Password with Andrew Burkhart [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e06-1password] * Episode 7: KSAT with Vegard Sandengen [https://corrode.dev/podcast/s04e07-ksat] Credits Podcast production by Simon Brüggen (M3t0r) [https://m3t0r.de/]. We would like to thank the guests for their time and insights. We would also like to thank you, the listener for your support and feedback. Hosting and producing a podcast is a lot of work, but it’s worth it when we hear from you. Here’s to another great season!