I agree with a sibling comment: when I read "Zig" I assumed the language.

You might consider adding "toolchain" to the title.

Good suggestion, though the title of my original talk (in the linked video) was even less assuming: "How Zig is used at Uber".

Will not change it now though, as this blog post is the last piece of this talk+announcement effort.

I'm actually somewhat glad I got "baited" into watching it. I don't think I would have been as likely to watch it had it included toolchain.

Thanks for publishing this, it was an interesting look into the topic!

Can you explain at a higher level why Uber has the need to go to such a lower level with its programming? What services need the kind of speed that Go, Zig, and the like provide in particular? I guess I was kind of surprised to see a conversation about low-level compilation of programs being super related to Uber's core mission(s)?

Some services span many many hosts (not sure I can say how many though). Not because they are inefficient; that's because it takes many cpus to do to support our trips/eaters/etc.

Most of the services benefit from speed/efficiency of Go: the more effective the language (runtime) is, the less we pay for hosting it, the cheaper the service to the customers.

Given that, the GC costs are still significant. Depends what you compare against.

Appreciate the answer. In hindsight do you think any solutions could have been purchased that the company "rolled" itself? Was it necessary to create such a huge engineering organization and deep level of technology for what's essentially a ride hailing and food delivery company, or was it more needed to burnish the company's image to investors as a "technology company"? I don't mean to offend with this question, I'm just honestly curious.

Two words: vertical integration.

pip install ziglang

https://github.com/ziglang/zig-pypi