>> I think the big problem is that any such thing you'd design an interface for might change in such a way that it doesn't make any sense to preserve this hypot

>> I think the big problem is that any such thing you'd design an interface for might change in such a way that it doesn't make any sense to preserve this hypothetical interface over time. Rust's standard library promises to keep maintaining all the pieces long after they're obsolete, and the bigger it gets the harder that will be. True. However, without more standardized components the Rust ecosystem could end up like the Common Lisp library problem: lots of libraries in various states of maturity and maintenance with no obvious choice of what to use to solve your problem. Big standard libraries help to drive corporate and enterprise adoption. It is part of the reason why Java and Python are so widely used in corporate / enterprise environments. It brings a lot of standardized functionality and longer-term support that those kinds of environments want. We rely on the Rust standard library because it will be maintained for a very long time and has mostly stable APIs. Without a bigger standard library or some other kind of standardization, we would build our own libraries that might re-invent the wheel, but at least we know that our libraries will be maintained.