Writing a CAD Language in Rust (with Adam Chalmers)

2024/10/16

Developer Voices

Frequently requested episodes will be transcribed first

Given how many languages have been written in C over the years, it’s not surprising to see new languages being written in Rust. What is surprising about this week’s guest is the domain he’s writing for: Computer Aided Design (CAD). Could Rust be sneaking its way into the CAD world too?

Joining me to discuss the design and implementation of a CAD programming language is Adam Chalmers. He works at Zoo, developing KCL - a language that looks like JavaScript, runs on Rust, and offers users a seamless hybrid experience of both coding and point-and-click modelling. So, how does that all fit together?

In this episode we look at the design and implementation of a programming language in Rust; how KittyCAD creates that hybrid environment for text-based programming and point-and-click modelling; and how we can learn to write our own Rust-interpreted languages.

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Adam’s Blog: https://adamchalmers.com/

Adam’s Guide To Writing Parsers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF3kMyzMC40

Zoo’s Modelling App: https://zoo.dev/modeling-app

Mechanical CAD: https://zoo.dev/blog/mechanical-cad-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow

A Lego brick in KCL: https://zoo.dev/docs/kcl-samples/lego

Winnow: https://docs.rs/winnow/latest/winnow/

Nom: https://docs.rs/nom/latest/nom/

Factorio: https://www.factorio.com/

Satisfactory: https://store.steampowered.com/app/526870/Satisfactory/

Crafting Interpreters: https://craftinginterpreters.com/

Coding in Antarctica: https://brr.fyi/