The Rust Foundation – the US non-profit behind the programming language since [1]Mozilla let the team go – has picked a new CEO: Rebecca Rumbul, formerly director of research and engagement at digital democracy charity mySociety, and before that the Privacy Collective.

Dr Rumbul's appointment at the [2]relatively new foundation reflects the growing importance of the Rust language – which can be seen from the foundation's list of [3]members . [4]Facebook is using it , as [5]is Google , [6]Microsoft , various [7]Linux kernel developers , and [8]Linux lappy vendor System76 . There are even a couple of Rust-based OSes, [9]Redox and [10]Theseus .

One reason is of course speed – Rust is consistently one of the [11]fastest languages, right after C and C++. But so are Ada and Fortran, which [12]excite very few people these days . Arguably Rust's [13]most significant rival in recent years is [14]Google's Go language : last year, it was the language most developers said [15]they wanted to learn next .

[16]

So let's compare them. Both are [17]curly bracket languages , with C-like syntax that makes them unintimidating for C programmers. Both are designed to be memory-safe. Both compile direct to native code. Both are designed to be simpler, cleaner replacements for C++.

[18]Keep calm and learn Rust: We'll be seeing a lot more of the language in Linux very soon

[19]Linux PC shop System76 is building a new desktop environment in Rust

[20]Latest patches show Rust for Linux project making great strides towards the kernel

[21]Rust 2021 edition to arrive in October with 'more consistent panic' and other new features

So much for the similarities; now to how they differ. Go was [22]designed to compile fast, to be relatively [23]simple , and be a good fit for large teams. It has strong support on concurrency with goroutines and channels, but [24]weaker error handling – and it does memory management for you, using garbage collection.

In contrast, Rust is a more complex, flexible language, with a [25]steeper learning curve , and eschews garbage collection for RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization), sometimes called Scope-Bound Resource Management. It only gained concurrency support [26]2019's v1.39.

[27]

To summarise, you can tell a lot about what they're good for by where they came from: Go was built by a giant provider of web services and Rust by a web-browser company. Go's strength is arguably web services being built by DevOps teams, whereas Rust is for lone coders and small teams, building standalone applications. Since the latter is the heartland of Linux and FOSS, you're likely to hear more about it. Since [28]Mozilla cut it off , it's good to know that Rust now has a new strong and well-funded backer. ®

Get our [29]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/04/waterfox_firefox_fork/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/18/rust_new_foundation/

[3] https://foundation.rust-lang.org/members/

[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/30/facebook_rust/

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/07/google_rust_android/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/rust_for_windows/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/10/where_rust_fits_into_linux/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/08/system76_developing_new_linux_desktop/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/29/after_four_years_rusty_os_nearly_selfhosting/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/rust_os_theseus/

[11] https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/index.html

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2017/05/04/fortran_greybeards_get_your_walking_frame_and_shuffle_over_to_nasa/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/11/developers_want_to_learn_go/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/15/go_google_logo/

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/06/developers_pay_review/

[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YZfYP6Pwk4N-EyKmMDjOcwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[17] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/27/in_rust_we_trust_stob/

[18] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/10/where_rust_fits_into_linux/

[19] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/08/system76_developing_new_linux_desktop/

[20] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/rust_for_linux_kernel_project/

[21] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/13/rust_2021_edition/

[22] https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article

[23] https://dave.cheney.net/2015/03/08/simplicity-and-collaboration

[24] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/17/google_go_team_try_keyword/

[25] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/20/rust_developer_survey_results/

[26] https://blog.rust-lang.org/2019/11/07/Rust-1.39.0.html

[27] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YZfYP6Pwk4N-EyKmMDjOcwAAAIc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[28] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/11/mozilla_staff_layoffs_products_revenue/

[29] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/