Should we call Rust a Failed Programming Language? (2024)

FAQs

Is Rust a failed language? ›

According to a StackOverflow survey, Rust is considered to be one of the fastest-growing programming languages and has been ranked as the most liked language by its users. But, programmers say otherwise. A good language should be safe, fast and easy to program.

Rust is One of the Fastest Growing Programming Languages, According to The IEEE Spectrum Development report by Tiobe Co. There are 2.8 million coders writing in Rust, and companies from Microsoft to Amazon regard it as key to their future.

Rust isn't particularly good at correctness of programs compared to something like Agda, but it is much easier to write Rust programs than Agda programs. The sides of the tradeoff are problem domain complexity, runtime cost, programmer effort, and compile-time cost.

“Rust is finally moving up. After the tailwind of the US government, which recently announced to recommend moving from C/C++ to Rust for security reasons, things are going fast for Rust,” Jansen said. “The community is growing, including the number of third-party libraries and tools.

Rust vs Python

Python shines in the tech world for being user-friendly and easy to understand. It doesn't need complex code translation and is known for its straightforward style and flexible features. Both newcomers learning to code and seasoned pros love it equally.

Rust also has some plus points when it comes to building ML and AI applications that deal with complex data structures or do efficient memory management. In the Future There Will Be More Libraries And Toolkits Utilized For Rust That Are Intended For Scientific Computation Or Deep Learning Computation.

It falls in the same category as C or C++. People usually don't have to make use of C/C++ or any systems engineering language that often. Rust is relatively new and doesn't have higher level abstractions for it. It barely has a fully functional HTTP server abstraction.

In a significant nod to the Rust programming language's capabilities, Tesla has incorporated Rust into its development stack for chassis controls.

Rust is extremely powerful but has a higher initial barrier to entry than most languages due to its type system and ownership model (affine types).

Rust will not replace C++. Everything is thrown out the window, including developer productivity in order to provide the 'zero overhead runtime guarantee' feature. The code ends up quite laborious, and it's just not suitable for many things, and it doesn't play so easily with C.

Will Rust replace Java? ›

Overall, There is a possibility that Rust could replace Java but it most likely wont.

Cons of Rust

Steep Learning Curve: Rust's unique features, like ownership and lifetimes, can be challenging to grasp for newcomers. Compilation Time: Rust programs can have longer compile times compared to some other languages.

Rust is arguably simpler than C++ to comprehend, and sure, more complex than simple C. But the complexity argument is overblown.

Rust, by comparison, is also usually considered more difficult because the memory safety guarantees force the programmer to think more critically about (though not limited to) their code wrt variable ownership and lifetimes in order to satisfy the strictness of the rustc borrow-checker.

The compiler is a very strict teacher

All things together, Rust insists that your program will be correct or it won't compile. Strict typing makes you think about the relations in your program. It checks that you don't get data races. It will tell you if you try to free some memory too soon.

Rust is a decent C++ replacement if you have the same goals as C++, but if you don't, the design has very similar drawbacks. Both Rust and C++ are what I like to call “kitchen sink” programming languages, with the obvious implication. These languages solve problems by adding more language features.