Why Learn Rust Programming Language in 2021?

Why is Rust trending again in 2021? Let’s take a look at it. Are you searching for a new programming language to learn in 2021? There are many great options out there, but Rust might be one of the best. It’s fun to learn, can improve your skills as a software developer, and has a very welcoming community.

  • Rust’s community is exciting and inviting.
  • The system programming language is desired for its memory safety guarantees and is being eyed as a replacement for code written in C/C++.
  • Rust is getting attention from major software companies and BigTech.
  • The team behind Rust has announced plans to release the third edition of Rust, that’s getting attention from Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google, Facebook, Mozilla, and Huawei.

The Rust programming language is gaining traction in the .NET community, both with Microsoft and among front-line developers.

Think about why it was developed.

Mozilla, the creator of Rust, said it was created in 2006 as “an alternative to C/C++,” listing its distinguished features as:

  • Zero-cost abstractions
  • Move semantics
  • Guaranteed memory safety
  • Threads without data races
  • Trait-based generics
  • Pattern matching
  • Type inference
  • Minimal runtime
  • Efficient C bindings

Rust aims to be a credible alternative to C++ for system programming needs. It addresses many of the inherent limitations of C++ such as memory safety and thread safety issues often leading to the infamous segmentation faults. Rust aims to bring the power of high level languages to meet low level systems programming needs.

Why add Rust to your programming skills? Working with things like memory management, borrow checker, lifetimes and the expressive types will undoubtedly make you a better software developer.

While Rust is neither Haskell nor Lisp, it has awesome support for all kinds of fun activities like functional programming and macros that you can try out while learning Rust.

Do be aware however that Rust is considered complex and a programming language with a steep learning curve. Unlike in many higher-level programming languages, there is neither a garbage collection nor a virtual machine in Rust.

The developers behind Rust wanted to create a language that would make system-level programming more secure and concurrent, i.e., offering the simultaneous execution of several calculations, instructions or commands.

So why is it a fan favorite? According to surveys, Rust has been the most loved programming language for the last four years in a row. Most of the people that have tried out Rust would like to continue using it.

  • Amazon Firecracker, an open source virtualization technology that powers AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate is written in Rust.
  • Rust is one of the few programming languages that has a built-in package manager. The package manager is called Cargo and is valued by developers due to its comparatively simple usability.
  • In Rust, unlike in JavaScript, for example, developers do not need to set up build scripts; the package manager automatically compiles and links libraries and programs.

It has three main benefits:

  • better memory safety due to the compiler;
  • easier concurrency due to the data ownership model that prevents data races;
  • zero-cost abstractions.

Rust is among the fastest growing language communities with major interest from the likes of Microsoft, Facebook, Google and others. Anyone who comes from C++ should be able to familiarize themselves with this relatively quickly.

I hope this article has given you some quick info and enthusiasm as to why you should learn Rust in 2021 or beyond.

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