What is Rust?
Rust is an open-source, systems programming language that you can use to develop efficient, safe software. With Rust, you can manage memory and control other low-level details. But you can also take advantage of high-level concepts like iteration and interfaces. These features set Rust apart from low-level languages like C and C++.
Rust also offers the following advantages that make it a great fit for a wide range of applications:
- Type safe: The compiler assures that no operation will be applied to a variable of a wrong type.
- Memory safe: Rust pointers (known as references) always refer to valid memory.
- Data race free: Rust's borrow checker guarantees thread-safety by ensuring that multiple parts of a program can't mutate the same value at the same time.
- Zero-cost abstractions: Rust allows the use of high-level concepts, like iteration, interfaces, and functional programming, with minimal to no performance costs. The abstractions perform as well, as if you wrote the underlying code by hand.
- Minimal runtime: Rust has a minimal and optional runtime. The language also has no garbage collector to manage memory efficiently. In this way, Rust is most similar to languages like C and C++.
- Targets bare metal: Rust can target embedded and "bare metal" programming, making it suitable to write an operating system kernel or device drivers.
According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey of 2022, Rust has been the most loved language for several years in a row. Developers enjoy programming with Rust! Many types of organizations, from startups to large enterprises, use Rust for their unique use cases. From building tools, to writing web apps, working on servers, and creating embedded systems, the possibilities are limitless.