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Disclaimer: Embedded dev here, working with 8, 16 and 32 Bit microcontrollers. Almost exclusively C. In Europe (and especially in Germany where I live) I don't
by sai_c 5y ago
Disclaimer: Embedded dev here, working with 8, 16 and 32 Bit microcontrollers. Almost exclusively C.
In Europe (and especially in Germany where I live) I don't see myself writing Rust in my day job for years to come (already twenty years in). Not because it's technically impossible or Rust is inferior, but simply because it seems to take decades for european/german companies to accept or at least try new ways of doing things.
Mind you, I'm not talking about startups (we don't have THAT many in Europe/Germany in the first place). Also, those are (mostly) web stuff companies.
Warning, unpopular opinion following.
I think HN is not the right place to ask this question. You will find a dev crowd here that is nothing like the big, quiet dev community out there in the real world. Most people here love trying new things (languages, frameworks, you name it I've tried it).
So don't base your conclusions on those answers alone. Talk to regular devs (those who say "Hackers News? Never heard of it."). Because those people set what will be used in companies.
EDIT: Corrected spelling of quiet.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- m463 5y ago> (those who say "Hackers News? Never heard of it.") "learn to administer microsoft tools, like active directory and exchange."
- oblio 5y agoOr SAP and any other ERP, or Salesforce and any other CRM, or any other kind of enterprise or banking software (Java, .NET, C++), VBA and "small" internal applications. Probably 60-80%+ of the software developers and sysadmins out there :-)
- ngrilly 5y agoI'm leading the software team at Northvolt Systems AB. Half the team is composed of embedded software engineers. We are currently using C to develop our battery management system. But I definitely think Rust as a bright future for that kind of application. The reason why is because functional safety is a major concern in battery systems. And it's really hard to achieve this in C, for the same reasons it's hard to write secure C code. The main obstacle to Rust adoption in embedded systems with functional safety requirements is that the toolchain is not qualified according to the functional safety standards we have to follow. If we could have something like the Arm Compiler for Functional Safety, but for Rust, then I think we could start using it. I'd be really interested to investigate this, in collaboration with other teams sharing that interest. https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/embedded/arm-compiler/safety https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/embedded/arm-co...
- ngrilly 5y agoSomeone is already working on this apparently: https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/ https://ferrous-systems.com/ferrocene/
- steveklabnik 5y agoAlso, since it was raised above: this company is based in Berlin :)
- sai_c 5y agoI can only fully agree on this. In my specific case it would already be enough if the the two big ones (Keil & IAR) would provide a compiler. If this obstacle vanished, the situation would be totally different here.
- ngrilly 5y agoARM should jump on the opportunity and support Rust in their qualified toolchain. (Since LLVM can target ARM)
- MayeulC 5y agoA friend of mine uses Rust at Alstom. He wasn't the one who pushed for it. I am not sure about what you said. Big companies are risk-averse, but that could play in Rust's favor. Some employees who are a few years short of retirement might push back on it, though.
- pjmlp 5y agoPeek & Cloppenburg was looking for C++ devs with Rust being a plus point for their NRW sites, a couple of months ago, So at least some German companies are slowly looking into it. However I fully agree with your post.