Eric Seppanen from Matic discusses using Rust for home automation robots, challenges of real-time mapping, benefits of Rust for safety, optimizing robot performance with Rust, updating software on robots, communication challenges, managing dependencies in Rust projects, and learning experiences with Rust.
Matic focuses on intelligent robots for home efficiency using Rust's efficiency in software stack.
Rust enables error-free memory management and thread safety for stable system development.
The podcast highlights challenges in dependency management, emphasizing the need for evaluation tools and processes.
Deep dives
Using Rust for Advanced Privacy-First Home Automation Robots
Matic focuses on building intelligent robots improving home efficiency, utilizing computer vision for navigation, ensuring better performance compared to previous generation robots that faced challenges like crashing and inefficiency.
Matic's Rust Software Stack and Platform Work
Matic primarily operates in Rust, leveraging its efficiency and productivity across various components including dependency management, build systems, memory management, and telemetry, highlighting Rust's dominance in their software stack.
Challenges and Advantages of Rust in Robot Development
Rust enables error-free memory management, aiding in bug reduction related to memory issues like use after free and buffer overruns, promoting fearless coding. Its thread safety capabilities support efficient concurrent and parallel programming, a significant advancement for stable, high-performance system development compared to past challenges in C++.
Exploring Dependency Management Challenges
The podcast delves into the challenges of managing dependencies in software development, raising questions about the integration of dependency management services. It discusses the need for a centralized data aggregation tool to provide information on published crates, emphasizing the differing opinions on what constitutes a good dependency. The episode highlights the importance of setting up tools and processes to evaluate dependencies, suggesting the potential for customized metrics to assess the quality and reliability of dependencies.
Enhancing Code Quality and Learning Rust
The discussion shifts towards improving code quality and the learning curve of Rust. The conversation touches on the ease of integrating Rust with systems languages like C and C++, showcasing the adaptability of developers transitioning to Rust. It underscores the significance of mentorship in facilitating the learning process and emphasizes the importance of understanding idiomatic Rust coding practices. Additionally, the exploration of reliable systems and quality tooling in Rust development underscores the community's commitment to enhancing software engineering practices.
Matic is on a mission to solve everyday problems with robotics. Design Milk wrote in an article about Matic: "Matic Robot Vacuum Collects Dust but Not Your Personal Data" and I really love that quote. It's a great summary of what Matic is about: privacy-respecting, truly smart robots. The San Francisco-based startup recently raised a $24M Series A round.
About Eric Seppanen
Eric is a systems engineer with a passion for reliable, well-designed software. He has a background in kernel development and high-performance computing with C++ and now works on robotics with Rust.
With his calm and insightful demeanor, Eric is the ideal person to talk about Rust's strengths for people with a C++ background.
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"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.
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