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What is Rust?

Rust is a modern systems programming language, like C and C++. It has gained popularity for solving issues common in C and C++ development, such as memory safety and data races, without sacrificing speed.

Rust is a compiled programming language, which means that the code we write is transformed into machine code that the computer's processor can execute directly. This compilation step helps catch errors early and optimizes the code for better performance.

Rust's purpose is to provide developers with low-level control while ensuring code safety through strict compile-time checks. It is widely used in areas such as operating systems, game engines, embedded systems, and high-performance web services.

History

Rust was created as a side project by Graydon Hoare in 2006 while he was working at Mozilla. Rust was named after a group of fungi that are "over-engineered for survival." In 2009, Mozilla began sponsoring the project. The first stable release, Rust 1.0, was launched in May 2015. Since then, Rust has seen rapid growth and adoption, becoming one of the most loved programming languages in the Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey.

Who is using Rust?

Rust is used by many companies and organizations, including Amazon, Atlassian, Discord, Dropbox, Figma, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Vercel.

A curated list of companies using Rust can be found at omarabid/rust-companies on GitHub.

What is the secret to Rust's popularity?

Rust is popular because it provides a good balance between speed, safety, concurrency, and portability. It allows developers to write high-performance code without sacrificing safety, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.

Key Features

  • Performance: Matches C and C++ speed while avoiding garbage collection.
  • Memory Safety: Eliminates null pointer dereferences and buffer overflows using ownership, borrowing, and lifetimes.
  • Concurrency: Prevents data races by enforcing rules on how data is accessed across threads.
  • Ecosystem: Cargo, Rust's package manager and build tool, streamlines dependency management and project setup.
  • Expressive Syntax: Offers modern features like pattern matching, generics, and macros.

Core Terminology

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These are basic terms, and new terminology will be introduced in later sections from time to time.

  • Ownership: Ensures that each piece of data has a single owner, defining clear memory management rules.
  • Borrowing: Allows temporary references to data without transferring ownership.
  • Lifetimes: Specify how long references remain valid, preventing dangling pointers.
  • Cargo: Rust's build system and package manager.
  • Crate: A package of Rust code, either a library or executable.

Learning Resources

The Learn Rust page on the official Rust website (https://www.rust-lang.org) provides a comprehensive list of resources, including core documentation and application domain guides to help get started with Rust.

Conclusion

Rust combines safety, speed, and concurrency, making it a strong choice for modern software where reliability and efficiency are critical.