The creators of Rust promise that their language will eclipse C and C++. Evrone developers have used it in a number of active projects, each of which has allowed us to gain impressive experience.
In C and C++, there are widely recognized problematics that programmers have to deal with time after time. This compilation difficulties, the high chance of memory leaks, the process of managing memory manually, the well-known segfaults. Rust’s job is to get around these shortcomings, while increasing performance and security.
What’s special about Rust?
Concise syntax with keywords, similar to C syntax.
A code parser to help avoid memory leaks and multi-threading errors.
Self-control of data location in memory (using pointers).
No garbage collection.
Powerful statistical typing.
History of the language
The language was developed in his spare time by Mozilla contributor Graydon Hore 14 years ago in 2006. He worked on his own for three years, until Mozilla officially got involved in 2009. Rust was officially released in 2010.
The first alpha release of the language took place in 2012. Servo, a web browser engine, was developed in Rust. In 2013, Samsung joined the work on Servo, and as a result, Servo code was ported to the ARM architecture.
Rust 1.0 was released in 2015. In its first year, Rust took bronze in the “Favorite Programming Language” voting on Stack Overflow. In all subsequent years, Rust has taken only first place.
Advantages and disadvantages
Arguments for:
Runs on Unix and Mac with no problems;
there are abstractions that greatly simplify manual memory management;
robust memory handling system that eliminates segmentation errors;
automatic presentation of ways to fix compilation errors;
the compiler contains a builder and package manager, tools for testing and creating documentation;
no pointers can be used in safe code (only references to 100% real objects);
available error descriptions in templates.
Arguments against:
The compiler is too strict in fixing calls to memory;
No typical OOP-style inheritance and classes.
rust pros and cons
Where does Rust fit in?
Rust code conforms to four major concepts in programming: procedural, parallel, functional, and OOP. Therefore, Rust is a versatile language that can be used in many areas. For example:
Programming client applications and web servers;
blockchain;
Creating your own operating system;
Writing programs and applications to monitor systems and servers;
development of general-purpose software;
infrastructure creation;
writing engines for browsers and games.
Software and operating systems
Rust is designed specifically for system development. It has all the memory and vulnerability management features needed to be used to create key programs and operating systems. The only hindrance to this is the lack of support from the hardware, whose manufacturers are used to everyone using C or C++. Here are a few successful implementations:
Multithreaded engine for the Servo browser;
Firecracker hypervisor, developed mostly for serverless architecture;
Redox microkernel OS.
Rust and web applications
Rust has everything you need to develop web applications. Its functionality is suitable for both frontend and backend. For frontend development, you can use Yew, Rust’s React counterpart. Easy and functional server development is available in actix-web, an extremely efficient framework including HTTP/2.0, WebSockets, and TLS. But of course Rust is not limited to Rust, there are many technologies: pencil, conduit, rocket, gotham. Here are examples of projects:
Coursera, an online learning service created by Stanford professors;
file and cloud hosting service Dropbox;
The OpenDNS project, which helps find available DNS servers.
Rust and neural networks
So far, neural networks in Rust are mostly experiments. The language looks pretty appealing to machine learning: low-level memory handling while using high-level abstractions, and the high performance of the language. All of this works on the Rust API and bodes well for its popularity. But so far in the Rust ecosystem, there are almost no 100% proven and safe frameworks for neural network development that can compete with Python libraries.
What’s next for Rust?
For nearly 40 years, C++ has been at the forefront of the industry, maintains that leadership, and is considered the development standard. Rust is a young language that is constantly changing and evolving, trying to address known shortcomings not only of C++, but also other languages.