Intro to Rust Programming

Rust is a programming language designed with a number of important features in mind, with both performance and safety being chief among them. It was originally designed by a team of professionals at Mozilla Research - the same organization known for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser.

The first pre-alpha release of Rust happened in 2012, while the first stable version was released a few years later, in 2015. All told, Rust has been consistently voted the "most loved programming language" each year since 2016 by the people who respond to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, pointing to a popular language that truly has something to offer just about everyone.

What is Rust Programming?

At its core, the Rust programming language is actually very similar to C++. However, Rust uses a borrow checker to validate references, thus offering a higher degree of memory safety than C++ is capable of. Not only that, but Rust also achieves memory safety without any type of garbage collection to speak of. Reference counting is also optional in the Rust programming language.

Who is Rust Programming For?

Rust programming is ideal in a wide range of different situations, and one of the biggest of those has to do with teams of developers who need to all be able to collaborate with one another on the same project. The Rust compiler actually refuses to compile code if certain types of subtle bugs are present, thus allowing those teams to spend less time troubleshooting issues and more time on the actual task at hand.

Rust is also a great way for students in particular to learn more about various programming languages and systems concepts. Rust is a viable learning tool for students who may want to know more about the process of developing their own operating system, for example.

Finally, countless companies both large and small use the Rust programming language in a wide range of different tasks. Many use Rust for data-intensive computation, for example. In addition to being used as command-line tools and for web services, Rust is also great for audio and video analysis, audio and video transcoding, work with cryptocurrencies, work with search engines, and even for the Internet of Things applications. That last point is particularly important, as the popularity of the Internet of Things is only predicted to grow exponentially over the last few years.

Pros of Rust Programming

By far, the biggest advantage of Rust programming has to do with how it is able to offer both speed and stability in equal measure. Not only does speed equate to the speed at which you can create programs with Rust, but also how Rust naturally enables better and faster workflows. So much of this has to do with how the Rust compiler automatically checks to guarantee stability whenever features are added or refactored. Programming languages without these types of checks and balances in place are often difficult to work with as issues can crop up time and again.

So from that perspective, not only does the Rust programming language support lower-level code literally as fast as you can write it, but it also helps make that code as safe as possible at all times.

Cons of Rust Programming

Of course, that's not to say that your Rust experience will be a perfect one every single time. Because Rust offers a very strong type system with an emphasis on memory safety, it's unfortunately very common to get errors whenever you try to compile your code. This can be frustrating, especially if you're coming from a different programming language without these checks in place.

But still, this in and of itself is important because if left unchecked, these errors could easily introduce bugs and bring with them potential vulnerabilities in the finished application. So while it's a little frustrating to have to deal with (many people refer to this process as "fighting the borrow checker" in Rust), it still ultimately brings with it benefits that you'd be hard-pressed to find through other means.

Likewise, the developers of Rust have spent a great deal of time and effort to make sure that any error messages you do receive are as clear and as concise as possible, which in and of itself is a good thing too.

Conclusion

In the end, it's easy to see why Rust is such a beloved programming language for so many people - it naturally solves a lot of the challenges that are inherent in many other types of systems, all while providing a very limited number of potential issues as well. But really, what Rust has become known for over the years is an efficient, enjoyable developer experience - which in and of itself helps dramatically improve the experience that you're able to offer to your own users as well.
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