Ken Micklas - A deep dive into Rust UI

Talk Abstract

Rust’s performance and expressiveness make it an attractive language for user interfaces. However, finding an abstraction that plays nicely with the borrow checker and ownership rules without compromising on Rust’s core value proposition is no easy task. Numerous language features, from macros, generic associated types, and higher-rank trait bounds to async, all seem like they may be of some help. Many ideas that seem promising at first end up running into issues with lesser-known constraints in the type system, missing language features, and sometimes even compiler bugs. In this talk, we’ll explore a history of designs that involved discarding fifteen failed attempts before arriving at one that works. We’ll see how embracing Rust’s constraints can help clarify a problem and produce better code, as well as where future language evolution might help both the authors and users of UI libraries.

Bio

Ken is a big believer in the power of better tools to help us produce higher-quality software faster. A build system hacker by day and an amateur type theorist by night, when not at a computer, you might find him perfecting his coffee brewing or going on very long walks around London.

Speakers links

GitHub: https://github.com/kmicklas
Project: https://github.com/kmicklas/ravel
LinkedIn:   / ken-micklas-4b324137  

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