Rust is a popular programming language for producing quality software and has been voted as the most-loved programming language for five years in a row. It enjoys significant momentum and has even been used to write an operating system (Redox) which claims to be safer and have less errors than any Unix flavor, due to its microkernel design and usage of Rust. Rust has a lively community (>20.000 entries) which has a reputation to be welcoming due to beginner-friendly rules and active moderation.
Having said that, most of the voters liking Rust are not even personally using it yet. It is not in the top 10 of the most used languages today. Experienced developers are hard to find.
How is it possible that a language with Rust’s level of adoption receives such a high level of attention and affection? The Software AG Technology Radar provides an excellent short introduction to Rust, including a summary of its advantages and drawbacks.
For programmers, it shows the principle that is underlying Rust’s attractiveness: its strong and consequently applied ownership model. This means that Rust controls very tightly who (read: which variable, and which program thread) is allowed to read and update values. Memory safety problems, as well as concurrency problems like the notorious “data race” problem, are avoided.
For non-programmers, the Technology Radar still contains valuable information. For example, Rust’s advantages transform into code that shows less problems at run time. This means less risk and less cost once the software is deployed. Some other programming languages may be a bit more efficient to write code in. But if the quality of the result is the primary concern, then the balance tips in favor of Rust very rapidly.
No programming language is perfect for every situation, but the Radar helps you to decide for which of your tasks Rust is.
If you are passionate about producing quality software, you need to consider Rust and make an informed decision about its usage. The Technology Radar empowers you to do that.