The rapid emergence of different programming languages in the technology landscape may affect the programming language/tool choice while building a software product. Despite this, some programming languages stand out, and Rust is one of them. Rust is a systems language designed to solve challenging software problems.
Since its announcement in 2010, Rust has witnessed tremendous growth. Its modern syntax and thriving community are quite attractive, so it is no wonder it was referred to as the "most loved" programming language in the 2023 Stack Overflow Developer's survey.
This article covers an overview of Rust programming language. It starts with its historical background. Then, it explores its fantastic and unique features, application areas, and how it compares to other programming languages. We will see why companies love Rust and how they use it.
It started when the creator, Graydon Hoare, had an elevator-crashing experience and realized this was a problem of poor memory management. So, in 2006, Hoare designed Rust as a side project to handle pitfalls such as memory management in C and C++ while offering type safety, high performance, and concurrency. Mozilla further sponsored the language and released it in 2010. photo from Google Trends showing Rust's internet trend over the past five years
In 2012, Rust underwent a significant evolution, marked by the introduction of versions 0.2 and 0.3. These versions brought with them a host of new features, including classes, polymorphism, and destructors, which significantly enhanced the language's functionality. This evolution was not a solitary effort, but a testament to the collective progress of the Rust community. In its early days, the Rust team gradually consolidated several memory management techniques. However, in 2013, the team removed the garbage collector and maintained ownership rules. The team released the first stable version, version 1.0, in 2015 after several versions.
2017 saw the integration of Rust components into Firefox 57. In 2020, the massive layoff at Mozilla raised concerns for the future of Rust. However, the Rust Foundation was formed, and its establishment was announced in 2021. Some companies, like AWS, Google, Microsoft, etc., founded the foundation and took ownership of the associated domain names.
photo from 2023 Stack Overflow Survey showing Rust as the most admired language with 84.66%
Some popular features of Rust include:
1. Concurrency and Parallelism
Concurrency is the ability for different parts of a program to run independently. The Rust concurrency model is called the fearless concurrency. It enables developers to write bug-free and easy-to-refactor code.
Threading is a method for implementing concurrency in Rust. It is a core feature of the concurrency model. With threads, tasks are subdivided and run in multiple processes simultaneously.
The std::thread
module in Rust is a powerful resource for creating and managing threads. It provides functions like 'spawn ', which not only create a thread but also execute a specific function within that thread, offering developers a high level of control over their concurrent processes.
Parallelism improves performance and efficiency in the codebase. Multiple CPU cores execute processes. Rayon is a library that implements parallelism in Rust.
2. Performance and Efficiency
Zero-cost abstraction in Rust achieves good performance and efficiency. Abstractions such as closures and iterators prevent runtime overhead. Features like concurrency and parallelism also contribute to the overall performance.
3. Memory Safety and Ownership
A program manages memory through memory safety to prevent errors. The ownership system ensures memory safety in Rust and dictates memory management in the program. Every value in the program has an owner. When the current context is no longer accessible to the owner, the memory associated with the value is deallocated or freed.
4. Strong Package Manager with Cargo
Cargo is Rust's package manager, making handling package dependencies and distribution easier. Package versions and dependencies can be added and specified when working on a project. Cargo also offers a range of commands to automate tasks such as running tests and compiling code.
5. Community and Documentation
The Rust community commits to welcoming and supporting new members. It has various platforms and forums where users can communicate and gain support. Since Rust is an open-source project, community members actively contribute to and maintain it.
Industry experts organize events to enhance learning and stay up-to-date with new versions. The community is friendly and inclusive, making it safe for everyone of different diversities to participate and engage.
The Rust official documentation is a robust and well-detailed guide for the language, including its syntax and libraries. The following are different sections of the documentation:
- The Rust Book
- Rust by example
- Rust reference
- Rustonomicon
- The standard library
6. Modern and Clean Syntax
Rust is known for its modern and clean syntax, which balances complexity and readability. Its syntax offers closure and pattern matching, which help make complex code readable.
7. Safety and Reliability
Safety and reliability are core principles of Rust in its design and syntax. This feature is a result of the removal of the garbage collector.
This section compares Rust with other programming languages, discussing its strengths and weaknesses in areas of software development.
photo from 2023 Stack Overflow Survey showing Rust as the 14th most popular language with 13.05%
try-catch
technique to catch errors at runtime. While this guarantees error handling, unhandled exceptions may occur at runtime and cause breaks in the code. Rust uses the result-match
technique to catch errors before code execution.Rust is applicable in various fields due to its unique and dominant features. This section explores the areas where Rust is applicable.
Companies worldwide have found Rust programming language applicable to their products, and developers love the language as it increases productivity. This section explores the top applications that use Rust, how top companies use Rust, and why these companies like Rust.
Popular companies that use Rust
Dropbox Dropbox is a collaboration and cloud storage platform that uses Rust to improve its infrastructure reliability and performance. Dropbox Capture, a visual communication tool, has benefited from Rust in ways such as better error handling. Currently, Dropbox uses Rust in the core file-storage system that serves over 500 million users.
Figma Figma is a web-based design collaborative tool that utilizes Rust in its backend infrastructure. The team at Figma has witnessed incredible improvements in their server-side performance. Figma rewrote their multiplayer server in Rust using TypeScript.
Discord The Discord team switched from Go to Rust when they discovered that Go always forced garbage collection. Today, they use Rust on the client side for the video encoding pipeline and Elixer NIFS on the server side. Also, Discord switched from Go to Rust in their Read State service.
Cloudflare Cloudflare is a leading internet service security provider. The Cloudflare application uses Rust in DDoS detection. The team also developed an open-source Rust framework called Pingora that builds services for traffic on Cloudflare. Cloudflare's Data Loss Prevention team uses Rust in the data and control plane.
Amazon Amazon is an e-commerce company that owns Amazon Web Services (AWS) but uses AWS independently by providing cloud computing services to individuals and companies. Firecracker was Amazon's first notable product implementation using Rust. They also use Rust to deliver services such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon CloudFront. Amazon's commitment to Rust is unwavering. They recognize its potential to help them build and deliver robust services faster. This commitment is further demonstrated by their sponsorship of the Rust open-source project since 2019.
Microsoft Microsoft is a founding member of Rust’s foundation. The company has since dedicated itself to the development and success of the programming language. Microsoft built its core Windows libraries with Rust and plans to write future projects with Rust. Microsoft’s Windows 11 boots with Rust and passes Graphic Device Interface (GDI) tests. Microsoft may not be rewriting Windows with Rust soon.
Mozilla The Mozilla developer team built the Firefox CSS engine, Stylo, with Rust. Rust also occupies 11.4% of the code in Firefox and other languages. Mozilla was the first founding member of the Rust project. The company’s commitment to seeing the language grow to success is a priority. Rust is considered one of Mozilla’s main contributions to the industry.
With the rising number of programming languages, choosing the right one for the task is necessary. Rust programming language has proven to be an efficient and reliable tool. Its distinction from other languages sets it apart, making it the most admired language eight times in a row.
This article has explored Rust as a programming language, starting with how it made it to the scene and how companies find it appealing. We learned about its unique features. We have also looked at Rust Vs. JavaScript, Rust Vs. Python, and Rust Vs. C++ how it compares to other languages, and its various applications.
We have seen how Rust’s ownership system and performance, amongst other top features, have set it above many programming languages. Rust is a top pick to build high-performance applications; however, it may not solve every software problem. However, It will continue to pave the way to breaking boundaries in software development.
I am a Backend developer and Technical writer with over 2 years of experience in both fields. I often share my experiences in tech and I love what I do.