Google engineers recently introduced ‘Carbon’, an open source programming language hailed as the possible successor of C++. With the new ‘experimental’ language being the talk of the internet, conversations around why ‘Rust’ didn’t become the official successor of C++ have also surfaced. With its own community of people called ‘Rustaceans’ who use, contribute and are interested in the development of the language, Rust is a statically-typed programming language for performance and safety, especially safe concurrency and memory management. Its syntax is similar to that of C++. The open-source project was originally developed at Mozilla Research. In 2021, the Rust Foundation took the torch and drove the development of the language. In his presentation at CPP North, Google engineer Chandler Carruth advised those using ‘Rust’ to continue using it. Carbon is for developers with large codebases in C++, which are difficult to convert into Rust. Carbon is specifically what Carruth called a ‘successor language’, built atop an already existing ecosystem, C++ in this case. 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. But is Rust? Rust is difficult. It has a complex syntax and a steep learning curve. It is designed to uniquely solve some very challenging problems in programming. However, as a beginner, using Cuda or MPI on Rust is not very simple compared to the other options like Swift and Go. Moreover, it is slow.
Rust is a snail compared to other languages. Even for small projects, the compile times are painfully long, and runtime measurements show that Rust is less efficient than the C programs. Imagine rewriting C libraries that have had decades of scrutiny applied only to introduce new bugs. Bugs in code are programmers’ nightmare. While it does save developers from some mistakes, it does not stop them from unintentionally writing bugs. Another issue are the constant warnings appearing over parentheses, especially over if statements and while loops. Rust is therefore a lot more complicated and inefficient and may soon be superseded by said tooling.
Not so unpopular after all? Even though first-hand experiences tell a different story, most big techs are already using Rust, while others plan to do so. Recently, Rust joined Meta’s panel of officially supported server-side programming languages. The list previously included C++, Hack and Python. “There’s a rapidly increasing Rust footprint in our products and services, and we’re committing to Rust long-term and welcome early adopters”, says Eric Garcia, a Meta software engineering manager. Dropbox uses Rust for some mission-critical bits of its programming. Other internet companies would probably choose Rust when they need good security, multi-threading, and to reduce the amount of hardware. For example, a highly efficient web service written in Rust can save millions of dollars in hardware for a company running thousands of servers.
Google also plans to use Rust in the Linux kernel after bringing support for the systems programming language Rust to Android. To reiterate, the aim is to reduce security flaws.Meanwhile, Microsoft too has turned to Rust to reduce memory-related bugs in Windows components. Currently, there are 25 repositories on GitHub of the public work Microsoft is doing with Rust. Most of them have occasional commits, which is minuscule compared to 317 C++ repositories.
Facebook has also strengthened ties with Rust by joining the Rust Foundation, an organisation established in 2021 to make Rust “a mainstream language of choice for systems programming and beyond”. In 2020, Linux kernel developers proposed rewriting new Linux kernel code in Rust. The idea was to add new code in Rust to the originally written Kernel in C. However, this idea is still in the development stage, described as experimental. In the future, Rust could become a top favourite language for the Internet of Things (IoT) devices with tiny processors and little RAM but need a high level of security. Moreover, considering its relationship with big techs, it would probably become a favourite language for internet companies that need to offer web services to millions of users.
Programming languages: Rust just got a big boost from Facebook's Meta
Image: Deagreez/GETTY Facebook parent Meta now encourages its engineers to use C++ and Rust programming languages for coding high-performance backend services. Rust, initially developed within Mozilla, is joining Meta as an officially endorsed server-side language. Adding Rust as a supported language was a "very careful and deliberate decision" to help engineers pick the best language for their projects, according to Meta. "Meta is committed to provide long-term support for programming languages used by our developer, and this move signals Meta's long-term commitment and support for the Rust language ecosystem," it said. Its status as a supported language is the next step in Facebook's adoption of Rust. It joined the Rust Foundation in April 2021 as a platinum member with AWS, Google, Huawei, Microsoft and Mozilla.
SEE: What is Coding and What is it Used For?
A Beginner's Guide Facebook has used Rust since 2016, a year after version 1.0 of the language arrived. Rust is the main language it used for the Diem (formerly Libra) stablecoin blockchain, its Mononoke source control server, and Move, Meta's "new, secure programming language to be used for the blockchain." Choosing Rust over C++ was a big decision for Facebook since most of its back-end code was written in C++, making it the obvious choice. Rust adoption gained momentum after Mononoke was deemed a success, drawing engineers with Python and JavaScript backgrounds, according to Facebook. Now, Rust is a primary supported server-side language along with Hack, C++, and Python. Rust is now recommended for writing command line interface (CLI) tools and "performance-sensitive back-end services". "There's a rapidly increasing Rust footprint in our products and services, and we're committing to Rust long-term and welcome early adopters," says Eric Garcia, a Meta software engineering manager.
Hack is preferred for business logic and "relatively stateless" applications, while Python remains "the language of choice" for data science, ML applications, and Instagram. Meta also supports Java, Erlang, Haskell, and Go for specific use cases. Meta says it carefully considers the question of supporting a new language because of the risks it involves to efficiency, productivity and developer time. It prefers to keep the list narrow to reduce the number of core libraries, reduce complexity when building security and privacy features, avoid language fragmentation to reduce operational risk, and developer tooling support. Rust's advantage at Facebook is that it easily interoperates with its C++ code for communicating with back-end systems that services are built on. "We need developers to be able to use these libraries safely and easily without sacrificing the benefits that Rust offers. Inversely, if we want to see Rust components integrated with our larger C++ binaries, we need smart runtime interoperability in asynchronous code.
Facebook's servers are highly distributed and heavily threaded. Rust tasks need to play nicely on a C++ threadpool and safely share synchronization primitives and I/O resources," Meta engineers recently explained. AWS has fostered Rust in its organization for building infrastructure software and encourages it for its reduced impact on energy consumption compared to Python and even Java. AWS services built on Rust include Firecracker, the technology behind its Lamba platform for containerized apps, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), its CloudFront content delivery network, and Bottlerocket, a Linux-based container OS.
SEE: Cloud computing security: Where it is, where it's going Google allows contributors to the Android Open Source Project to write new Android code in Rust, but the Chrome team has opted to stay with C++ over Rust as the primary language for the foreseeable future. Microsoft has been experimenting with Rust for Windows as an alternative to C and C++ since 2019, while the Azure team has embraced it for coding in the cloud. Rust isn't as widely used as Python and Java, but it is consistently rated "the most loved" programming language in Stack Overflow's annual developer surveys. Even ransomware gangs are rewriting their malware in Rust.
Telemundo Taps Sandra Smester to Lead Programming
Smester, a veteran of TV Azteca and Univision, will oversee primetime and dayside programming for the network, as well as scheduling. Telemundo Enterprises, the Spanish-language media giant owned by NBCUniversal, has hired Sandra Smester to serve as executive vp programming and content development. It’s a newly created role for the company, with Smester set to oversee all programming for the network, as well as content acquisitions, scheduling, program planning and the cable channel Universo. Smester will report to Ronald Day, president of entertainment and content strategy for Telemundo. Smester was most recently executive vp and chief content officer for TV Azteca, and before that spent years at Univision, including as executive vp programming.
She joins Telemundo as the company pursues a multiplatform future, with a Telemundo-branded hub within NBCUniversal’s Peacock, and the company launching a studio meant to provide Spanish-language programming to a wide array of networks and streaming services. “Sandra is a world-class media executive and a savvy programmer with a keen eye for great content, a long history of programming innovation, and a deep understanding of the U.S. Hispanic media space,” said Day in a statement.
“She’s achieved impressive results at every stage of her career and is uniquely positioned to power Telemundo’s continued leadership, overseeing our best-in-class programming serving Latino audiences.” “For years Telemundo has offered groundbreaking content, taking risks with innovative programming decisions and bringing a contemporary approach to our industry,” Smester added. “I look forward to continuing in that tradition, deepening the connection with their existing audiences and creating new Telemundo superfans along the way.”