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Only things written in Rust I know are rewrites of decades old C applications or rewrites of js tooling. What "new generation" of games, browsers, editors, CAD

by nec4b 3y ago

Only things written in Rust I know are rewrites of decades old C applications or rewrites of js tooling. What "new generation" of games, browsers, editors, CAD applications, etc. are written in Rust? Is Rust used in aerospace, automotive, healthcare, instrumentation or finance industries? What is glamorous in Rust that hasn't been done in other languages?

steveklabnik 3y ago
It is difficult to answer this question because there are so many answers, and they're so broad. I will try to give some partial answers. > games Some indie games, a new AAA studio has been working on a game for a while (Embark, their first game is still in C++ but they are building the foundations for the next ones, which takes time), at least one AAA studio known to use it for tooling (Treyarch). The first time I personally gave a talk at a AAA studio about Rust was 2019, though I don't believe that studio is using it for anything I am aware of. > browsers Firefox is about 12% Rust by volume, but is also only 41% C and C++, so it's about a quarter of the relevant systems level code. Chromium has Rust in the tree, but only libraries right now, they don't write new code yet except wrappers. Brave has an adblock component in Rust. > CAD applications Not aware of movement here. > aerospace, Very early days, some small projects, nothing massive yet. > automotive, This one is gearing up massively: a rust compiler was just qualified for the relevant safety standards to be used in automotive, several large manufacturers have had job openings open mentioning Rust. It certainly hasn't taken over the world yet but there's a lot of actual movement in this space. > healthcare, Not aware of specific things here. > instrumentation I don't know what the "instrumentation industry" is. > finance Some players are using some things, but as a very proprietary industry, not a lot of specifics are known. I have given an internal talk at a big hedge fund a few years back, unsure if they're doing anything in production just yet. There are other big successes that aren't covered by these industries; Shopify adding a JIT to Ruby, Cloudflare's heavy use of Rust (which means that a significant chunk of internet traffic passes through Rust code), AWS's heavy use of Rust (the core of products like Lambda and S3 are in Rust these days), Apple using it for network services appparently, Meta keeping their monorepo in a version control system written in Rust, and it being an official language to use on projects there, Google using Rust for significant components in Android, Windows having added Rust code already, with more to come, Rust becoming the next language used in the Linux kernel... the stories are endless at this point.
- nec4b 3y ago
  Basically it is being used as any other language out there. Nothing more glamorous than what existing languages are used for.
gosub100 3y ago
I think rewrites can be as "glamorous" as greenfield, because you get to use a modern language and toolset. yes you have some drudgery tacked on, which is likely having to wade through legacy C code, but having a perfect set of working requirements (do what the old app does!) more than makes up for it.

by nec4b 3y ago

steveklabnik 3y ago

It is difficult to answer this question because there are so many answers, and they're so broad. I will try to give some partial answers. > games Some indie games, a new AAA studio has been working on a game for a while (Embark, their first game is still in C++ but they are building the foundations for the next ones, which takes time), at least one AAA studio known to use it for tooling (Treyarch). The first time I personally gave a talk at a AAA studio about Rust was 2019, though I don't believe that studio is using it for anything I am aware of. > browsers Firefox is about 12% Rust by volume, but is also only 41% C and C++, so it's about a quarter of the relevant systems level code. Chromium has Rust in the tree, but only libraries right now, they don't write new code yet except wrappers. Brave has an adblock component in Rust. > CAD applications Not aware of movement here. > aerospace, Very early days, some small projects, nothing massive yet. > automotive, This one is gearing up massively: a rust compiler was just qualified for the relevant safety standards to be used in automotive, several large manufacturers have had job openings open mentioning Rust. It certainly hasn't taken over the world yet but there's a lot of actual movement in this space. > healthcare, Not aware of specific things here. > instrumentation I don't know what the "instrumentation industry" is. > finance Some players are using some things, but as a very proprietary industry, not a lot of specifics are known. I have given an internal talk at a big hedge fund a few years back, unsure if they're doing anything in production just yet. There are other big successes that aren't covered by these industries; Shopify adding a JIT to Ruby, Cloudflare's heavy use of Rust (which means that a significant chunk of internet traffic passes through Rust code), AWS's heavy use of Rust (the core of products like Lambda and S3 are in Rust these days), Apple using it for network services appparently, Meta keeping their monorepo in a version control system written in Rust, and it being an official language to use on projects there, Google using Rust for significant components in Android, Windows having added Rust code already, with more to come, Rust becoming the next language used in the Linux kernel... the stories are endless at this point.

nec4b 3y ago
Basically it is being used as any other language out there. Nothing more glamorous than what existing languages are used for.

gosub100 3y ago

I think rewrites can be as "glamorous" as greenfield, because you get to use a modern language and toolset. yes you have some drudgery tacked on, which is likely having to wade through legacy C code, but having a perfect set of working requirements (do what the old app does!) more than makes up for it.