Year after year, Stack Overflow’s popular annual developer survey consistently reveals the same conclusion – Rust is officially the favorite programming language of the world. What was once a passion confined to niche engineering circles has become mainstream in the United States – from Silicon Valley and Seattle’s vibrant tech scenes to the military corridors of Washington D.C., the country’s software infrastructure is going through a major transformation. The major technology conglomerates, financial institutions, and government agencies are ditching old programming languages and rewriting their crucial code in Rust.
To better comprehend the reasons behind the love-hate relationship between American software engineers and their employers to Rust, one needs to go back in history and explore the key problems of traditional software development. Until recently, programming languages provided developers with a trade-off between speed and safety. To maximize performance, you had to choose C or C++ because of their direct hardware interaction. These languages gave programmers total freedom over computer resources but were notorious for their memory safety issues. Alternatively, to ensure safety, you could opt for slower languages such as Java, Go, or Python that relied on “garbage collection.”
The biggest selling point of Rust is that it offers the speed of C++ coupled with absolute memory safety guarantees and predictable performance, something American companies cannot resist anymore.
1. Solving The Billion-Dollar Memory Security Problem
By far, the number one reason behind the sudden explosion of interest in Rust comes from its ability to solve the problem of memory vulnerabilities once and for all. Unlike other languages where programmers have to manage computer memory themselves, Rust relies on a revolutionary feature called the “borrow checker.” The system automatically checks the movement of your data in the software and frees up memory precisely when it is no longer needed. This way, it becomes impossible to create memory leaks, use-after-free errors, and dangerous buffer overflows.
According to historical statistics provided by Microsoft and Google, memory-related vulnerabilities account for around 70 percent of all security risks in enterprise software. In an era when cyber warfare and ransomware cost the US national security and businesses billions of dollars, these kinds of memory bugs have become unacceptable in the country’s corporate and governmental systems.
The “borrow checker” allows programmers to find catastrophic security vulnerabilities right while coding their programs. As opposed to traditional debugging approaches, when memory leaks and other vulnerabilities appear in production systems and cost the businesses millions in maintenance, Rust finds them at a very early stage and prevents their deployment on customer-facing servers.
2. Official Backing by Major Tech Companies and the US Government
Rust’s rapid adoption in America has much to do with the backing of some of the largest technology conglomerates in the country. Instead of playing with the language independently, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon decided to invest heavily in its future. As a result, today, Microsoft actively incorporates Rust in Windows’ kernel to improve memory safety. Similarly, Google incorporates the technology in the development of its mobile Android operating system and browser engine Chromium. The company reports an incredible drop in memory bugs due to that move.
Moreover, Amazon Web Services (AWS) depends on Rust to provide the virtualization infrastructure that powers its vast network of cloud servers. As mentioned earlier, Rust code executes incredibly fast, making it an ideal language for the creation of cloud computing infrastructure that consumes minimal power.
Finally, the US government officially took a position on Rust. In February 2023, the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) alongside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued directives to American enterprises urging them to gradually phase out the usage of dangerous languages such as C or C++. The US administration strongly recommends Rust to its contractors to develop memory-safe systems.
As you see, thanks to its official support and investment from tech giants, knowledge of Rust can give you access to some of the best jobs in America for decades to come.
3. Extreme Performance with Absolute Predictability
The importance of performance in the modern digital economy cannot be overestimated. When working on software, programmers need to consider performance at each step because it directly impacts the efficiency of users’ interaction with the application. Whether you work on high-frequency trading, real-time video processing, or complex graphical interfaces, high performance can make the difference between success and failure. Fortunately, Rust does not require developers to use garbage collection to free up computer memory every now and then, meaning that the language offers blazing fast performance with zero lag.
Like any other system programming language, Rust compiles down to native machine code that allows for full hardware manipulation and efficient management of CPU and memory resources. In the era of big data and AI, this level of performance gives programmers the power to push limits and deliver exceptional applications.
Moreover, because Rust lacks the runtime overhead associated with garbage collection, it does not cause latency issues for developers. On the contrary, code written in Rust executes with absolute consistency in data centers that are used for the distribution of applications across multiple microservices. That is a huge advantage over garbage collection-dependent languages where the performance fluctuates.
Another great thing about the incredible performance of Rust is that it saves your money. The absence of lag means that developers need fewer cloud servers to achieve the same goal as they do in other programming languages. That is why many companies migrating to Rust observe significant drops in their AWS costs.
4. Excellent Developer Experience
Until recent years, programming languages designed for the creation of highly reliable software were famous for providing terrible developer experience. Cryptic error messages, inconsistent IDEs, poor dependency management – you name it. Rust intentionally avoided taking such a road and crafted a wonderful toolchain for programmers. The cornerstone of the developer workflow in Rust is Cargo, a built-in package manager and compile tool.
Cargo automatically takes care of the entire pipeline, allowing you to fetch external libraries, configure the compiler settings, and run unit tests in a few clicks. As opposed to C++, Cargo allows you to streamline your workflow with a few keystrokes.
What Rust also has over C++ and most other system languages is the compiler itself. Its creators designed the compiler in a special way so that you could easily debug your code with minimal effort. The compiler analyzes every piece of your code thoroughly and, upon encountering an error, notifies the programmer of the problem along with offering a solution. Thanks to this great feature, the Rust compiler feels like an experienced mentor.
The Future Is Here
Thanks to the efforts of major technology corporations, Rust became an official language in the US software infrastructure. As you can see, Rust became the de facto standard for all the latest innovations, from AI infrastructure and cloud computing to self-driving cars and medical devices. The future of American software will undoubtedly revolve around the language, so learning it will put you in a highly desirable position for years to come.
Unlike C++, which has been in the market for more than thirty years, Rust offers developers an entirely new paradigm for building safe yet incredibly fast programs. While the initial learning curve might feel steep due to the “borrow checker,” eventually, it pays off big time. By learning Rust, you’ll gain invaluable expertise that allows you to pursue the highest-paying, interesting, and complex jobs available on the market.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is Rust harder to learn than Python or JavaScript?
Yes, learning Rust is indeed harder than learning higher-level programming languages such as Python and JavaScript. This happens because Rust gives programmers complete freedom over system resources and requires knowledge of memory storage and data types. Unlike Python or JavaScript, which hide system complexity from developers, Rust forces them to address all these important details while coding. So, while it can take some time to get acquainted with Rust in detail, in the long term, your productivity and software quality will grow significantly.
Can Rust be used for web development?
Rust can be used for developing high-performance backends in combination with Actix Web and Axum libraries. Furthermore, Rust became the main driver of WebAssembly technologies, so web developers now have an opportunity to run their Rust code directly inside browser engines. It allows you to craft highly interactive web applications, including video editors and games.
Will Rust replace C and C++ soon?
No, Rust will not replace C++ anytime soon due to the enormous legacy infrastructure powered by those languages. The cost of rewriting billions of lines of code in Rust would cost trillions of dollars to American tech enterprises. Nonetheless, the language is rapidly gaining traction among developers who need speed and safety at the same time.
Why can companies save a lot of money by rewriting their code in Rust?
Firstly, rewriting existing systems in Rust can help developers optimize their infrastructure by using highly efficient Rust code. Without runtime garbage collection, Rust compiles down to the native machine instructions that consume minimal computational resources, requiring fewer cloud servers to execute. Consequently, companies can reduce their costs significantly and even achieve greater throughput with less hardware.
Is Rust a good language for absolute beginners with no prior experience in programming?
It is possible to learn Rust as your first programming language, but it may prove difficult due to the presence of complicated hardware and memory features. At the same time, learning Rust is much easier compared to C++ because of its syntax.
