Posts Tagged ‘AnatolUlrich’
[OxidizeConf2024] The Fullest Stack by Anatol Ulrich
Embracing Rust’s Cross-Platform Versatility
Rust’s ability to operate seamlessly across diverse platforms—from embedded devices to web applications—positions it as a uniquely versatile language for full-stack development. At OxidizeConf2024, Anatol Ulrich, a freelance developer with extensive experience in web, mobile, and embedded systems, presented a compelling vision of the “fullest stack” built entirely in Rust. Anatol’s talk demonstrated how Rust’s “write once, compile anywhere” philosophy enables low-friction, vertically integrated projects, spanning embedded devices, cloud services, and web or native clients.
Anatol showcased a project integrating a fleet of embedded devices with a cloud backend and a web-based UI, all written in Rust. Using the postcard crate for serialization and remote procedure calls (RPC), he achieved seamless communication between an STM32 microcontroller and a browser via Web USB. This setup allowed real-time data exchange, demonstrating Rust’s ability to unify disparate platforms. Anatol’s approach leverages Rust’s type safety and zero-cost abstractions, ensuring robust performance across the stack while minimizing development complexity.
Streamlining Development with Open-Source Tools
A key aspect of Anatol’s presentation was the use of open-source Rust crates to streamline development. The dioxus crate enabled cross-platform UI development, supporting both web and native clients with a single codebase. For embedded communication, Anatol employed postcard for efficient serialization, agnostic to the underlying transport layer—whether Web USB, Web Serial, or MQTT. This flexibility allowed him to focus on application logic rather than platform-specific details, reducing friction in multi-platform projects.
Anatol also introduced a crate for auto-generating UIs based on type introspection, simplifying the creation of user interfaces for complex data structures. By sprinkling minimal hints onto the code, developers can generate dynamic UIs, a feature particularly useful for rapid prototyping. Despite challenges like long compile times and WebAssembly debugging difficulties, Anatol’s open-source contributions, soon to be published, invite community collaboration to enhance Rust’s full-stack capabilities.
Future Directions and Community Collaboration
Anatol’s vision extends beyond his current project, aiming to inspire broader adoption of Rust in full-stack development. He highlighted areas for improvement, such as WebAssembly debugging and the orphan rule, which complicates crate composition. Tools like Servo, a Rust-based browser engine, could enhance Web USB support, further bridging embedded and web ecosystems. Anatol’s call for contributors underscores the community-driven nature of Rust, encouraging developers to collaborate on platforms like GitHub and Discord to address these challenges.
The talk also touched on advanced techniques, such as dynamic type handling, which Anatol found surprisingly manageable compared to macro-heavy alternatives. By sharing his experiences and open-source tools, Anatol fosters a collaborative environment where Rust’s ecosystem can evolve to support increasingly complex applications. His work exemplifies Rust’s potential to deliver cohesive, high-performance solutions across the entire technology stack.