The Soul of a New Machine is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book that tells the story of a team of engineers at Data General who were tasked with designing a new 32-bit minicomputer, the Eclipse MV/8000, to compete with Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX computer. The book, written by Tracy Kidder, provides a detailed and compelling account of the engineers' year-long effort, highlighting the intense work ethic, technological innovations, and personal sacrifices involved in the project. It explores the culture of the high-tech industry, the grassroots approach to innovation, and the tension between engineering quality and time to market. The book is praised for its narrative art and its insight into the human side of technological development.
Think about this: software engineers have modern code editors, parallel processing, continuous integration, and countless tools that make their work efficient. But hardware engineers? They're often working with single-threaded tools, limited automation, and workflows that haven't fundamentally changed in decades. Zoo is building the infrastructure to change that, creating a modern set of tools and APIs that will allow companies and engineers to build better hardware design tools and accelerate the development of physical products.
Today we're joined by Jessie Frazelle, CEO of Zoo (formerly KittyCAD), to talk about migrating core parts of Zoo's infrastructure to Rust, boring infrastructure, how Rust can help bridge the gap between software and hardware development, and how Zoo is building the foundation for the next generation of hardware development tools.
About Zoo
While software engineering has evolved with powerful tools and workflows, hardware design is still stuck 'the dark ages.' Zoo's mission is to make building hardware products as seamless as building software.
Zoo is working on everything from graphics engines to automated workflows for mechanical engineers, and they're even developing their own file format in collaboration with industry leaders. Their goal is to become the foundation that powers the next generation of hardware design tools, making it possible for individuals and small teams to build innovative solutions that were previously only possible within major companies.
About Jessie Frazelle
Jessie Frazelle is the CEO of Zoo and a former software engineer at Microsoft, Docker, and Google. She's a contributor to many well-known open-source projects and has a background in security, containers, and cloud computing. Jessie is also a prolific speaker and writer, and she's passionate about making technology fun and accessible to everyone.
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Links From The Episode (In Chronological Order)
Official Links
Rust in Production 