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> the worry is by the time it reaches v1 Rust will have consumed the space that C/C++ used to Given that Rust is quite an old language now and its adoption is

by pron 9mo ago

> the worry is by the time it reaches v1 Rust will have consumed the space that C/C++ used to Given that Rust is quite an old language now and its adoption is still so low, I don't think that should be much of a worry, although that doesn't mean Zig will be the option of choice, and not stabilising is certainly not a good sign. At Rust's adoption rate, a language that hasn't been invented yet and that would show a more normal rate of adoption for a popular language could easily overtake it. > There is also the issue of will people actually code by then. Now that could be a bigger issue. :)

metaltyphoon 9mo ago
> Given that Rust is quite an old language now and its adoption is still so low, So being part of 3 major OS (Windows, Android and now Linux), the big 3 cloud providers having SDKs for the language, used by so much tooling (js + python) and being part of major internet infrastructure means its “slow” adoption then wow…
- pron 9mo ago
  Very much so once you compare it to how quickly C++ (and, in fact, any language that's ever been in the top 5 or so) achieved similar milestones. Rust's adoption is very impressive when you compare it to, say, Haskell or Clojure, but not when you compare it to languages that achieved significant and long-lasting popularity. It's roughly similar to Ada's adoption when it was of a similar age (Ada was more prevalent then than Rust is now in some areas and less so in others). When work on Rust started twenty years ago, Java was younger than Rust is now. It was almost as close in time to the early work on C++ as we are now to the early work on Rust. Larger portions of operating systems were being written in C++ when it was younger than Rust is now. There's no denying Rust's popularity in open-source CLI dev tools for Python and JS/TS, but when you talk to C/C++ shops who've evaluated Rust and see how many of them end up using it (and to what extent) you see it's not like it's been with languages that ended up achieving real popularity (which includes not only super-popular languages like C, C++, and Java, but also mid-popular languages like Go).
  - metaltyphoon 9mo ago
    > Very much so once you compare it to how quickly C++ C++ came out in 1985 and competed with C, COBOL, Pascal and FORTRAN. It was an overall improvement than those and therefore there is a legit reason for it to take off. > how many of them end up using it (and to what extent) you see it's not like it's been with languages that ended up achieving real popularity I assume many places that have a huge codebase in C++ would just do a port to Rust. That would almost always cause problems but for greenfield projects it's a no brainer IMO.
    - pron 9mo ago
      > It was an overall improvement than those and therefore there is a legit reason for it to take off. Of course. The rate of adoption is related to the increase in value compared to the status quo, much like how genes spread. But Rust's adoption is slow precisely because its "fitness benefit" is low. > That would almost always cause problems but for greenfield projects it's a no brainer IMO. It would have been a no brainer if, when writing a new codebase expected to last 20 years or more (which is often the case with software written in low-level languages), you'd believe the chosen language to be very popular over the next few deacdes. But given its slow adoption compared to languages that ended up achieving that status, despite it's rather old age, it's not looking like a safe bet, which is why Rust's adoption for important greenfield projects is also low (again, relative to other languages).
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    To this day C++ has hardly won the hearts of C devs on the embedded space, on both sides of the camp there are individuals that start religious discussions about the C/C++ abreviation, there is something like Orthodox C++ that basically means using C++ compiler to write what is mostly Better C, and most frameworks that were so hyped in the 1990's are now gone, or subsyst in maintenance contracts on applications that when the time gets to be rewritten it won't surely be C++. So even though C++ is the language I reach for outside Java, C#, TypeScript, I would assert that downplaying Rust adoption by Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, Google, is losing track where things are going.
ceteia 9mo ago
Rust projects generally use licenses like MIT instead of GPL, and thus some major corporations support Rust a lot, and thus Rust will continue getting popular.
- pron 9mo ago
  Growing in absolute numbers doesn't mean growing the market share, and even a growing market share is not necessarily sufficiently fast growth to become a safe bet. All languages that ended up becoming very popular grew their market share much faster than Rust does. Being an old language with some real market share is obviously better than being an old language with negligible market share, but being an old language with real, but small, market share is not exactly a sign of confidence. It's true that the total market share for low level languages (C + C++ + Rust + Zig + others) continues declining, as it has for a couple of decades now (that may change if coding agents start writing everything in C [1] but it's not happening yet), but that's all the more reason to find some "safe bet" within that diminishing total market. Rust's modest success is enough for some, but clearly not enough for many others to be seen as a safe bet. [1]: https://stephenramsay.net/posts/vibe-coding.html https://stephenramsay.net/posts/vibe-coding.html
  - ceteia 9mo ago
    Do you know of a good way to measure market share? I know of GitHub's and StackOverflow's surveys, but I'm not sure how well they reflect reality. There is also Redmonk. GitHub's survey did not say much about Rust I think, despite Rust projects often having lots of starring. Rust projects might have a greater ratio of stars-to-popularity than projects in other languages, though. StackOverflow's survey was much more optimistic or indicated popularity for Rust. Redmonk places Rust at place 19th.
    - pron 9mo ago
      The best sources are industry studies by market research companies that collect information from companies. The best public sources, IMO, are those based on job openings (as jobs correlate more with total number of lines of code than sources based on number of repos, PRs, or questions). Some of these are about a year out-of-date: https://www.devjobsscanner.com/blog/top-8-most-demanded-programming-languages/ https://www.devjobsscanner.com/blog/top-8-most-demanded-prog... https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/coding-languages https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/codin... https://www.itransition.com/developers/in-demand-programming-languages https://www.itransition.com/developers/in-demand-programming... https://www.hackerrank.com/blog/top-developer-skills-in-2025-momentum-not-mayhem/ https://www.hackerrank.com/blog/top-developer-skills-in-2025... Viewing these numbers through an optimistic or pessimistic lens is a matter of perspective and, of course, no one knows the future. But when you compare Rust, which is a middle-aged language now, to how languages that ended up "making it" were at the same age, the comparison is not favourable.

by pron 9mo ago

metaltyphoon 9mo ago

> Given that Rust is quite an old language now and its adoption is still so low, So being part of 3 major OS (Windows, Android and now Linux), the big 3 cloud providers having SDKs for the language, used by so much tooling (js + python) and being part of major internet infrastructure means its “slow” adoption then wow…

pron 9mo ago
Very much so once you compare it to how quickly C++ (and, in fact, any language that's ever been in the top 5 or so) achieved similar milestones. Rust's adoption is very impressive when you compare it to, say, Haskell or Clojure, but not when you compare it to languages that achieved significant and long-lasting popularity. It's roughly similar to Ada's adoption when it was of a similar age (Ada was more prevalent then than Rust is now in some areas and less so in others). When work on Rust started twenty years ago, Java was younger than Rust is now. It was almost as close in time to the early work on C++ as we are now to the early work on Rust. Larger portions of operating systems were being written in C++ when it was younger than Rust is now. There's no denying Rust's popularity in open-source CLI dev tools for Python and JS/TS, but when you talk to C/C++ shops who've evaluated Rust and see how many of them end up using it (and to what extent) you see it's not like it's been with languages that ended up achieving real popularity (which includes not only super-popular languages like C, C++, and Java, but also mid-popular languages like Go).
- metaltyphoon 9mo ago
  > Very much so once you compare it to how quickly C++ C++ came out in 1985 and competed with C, COBOL, Pascal and FORTRAN. It was an overall improvement than those and therefore there is a legit reason for it to take off. > how many of them end up using it (and to what extent) you see it's not like it's been with languages that ended up achieving real popularity I assume many places that have a huge codebase in C++ would just do a port to Rust. That would almost always cause problems but for greenfield projects it's a no brainer IMO.
  - pron 9mo ago
    > It was an overall improvement than those and therefore there is a legit reason for it to take off. Of course. The rate of adoption is related to the increase in value compared to the status quo, much like how genes spread. But Rust's adoption is slow precisely because its "fitness benefit" is low. > That would almost always cause problems but for greenfield projects it's a no brainer IMO. It would have been a no brainer if, when writing a new codebase expected to last 20 years or more (which is often the case with software written in low-level languages), you'd believe the chosen language to be very popular over the next few deacdes. But given its slow adoption compared to languages that ended up achieving that status, despite it's rather old age, it's not looking like a safe bet, which is why Rust's adoption for important greenfield projects is also low (again, relative to other languages).
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  To this day C++ has hardly won the hearts of C devs on the embedded space, on both sides of the camp there are individuals that start religious discussions about the C/C++ abreviation, there is something like Orthodox C++ that basically means using C++ compiler to write what is mostly Better C, and most frameworks that were so hyped in the 1990's are now gone, or subsyst in maintenance contracts on applications that when the time gets to be rewritten it won't surely be C++. So even though C++ is the language I reach for outside Java, C#, TypeScript, I would assert that downplaying Rust adoption by Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, Google, is losing track where things are going.

ceteia 9mo ago

Rust projects generally use licenses like MIT instead of GPL, and thus some major corporations support Rust a lot, and thus Rust will continue getting popular.

pron 9mo ago
Growing in absolute numbers doesn't mean growing the market share, and even a growing market share is not necessarily sufficiently fast growth to become a safe bet. All languages that ended up becoming very popular grew their market share much faster than Rust does. Being an old language with some real market share is obviously better than being an old language with negligible market share, but being an old language with real, but small, market share is not exactly a sign of confidence. It's true that the total market share for low level languages (C + C++ + Rust + Zig + others) continues declining, as it has for a couple of decades now (that may change if coding agents start writing everything in C [1] but it's not happening yet), but that's all the more reason to find some "safe bet" within that diminishing total market. Rust's modest success is enough for some, but clearly not enough for many others to be seen as a safe bet. [1]: https://stephenramsay.net/posts/vibe-coding.html https://stephenramsay.net/posts/vibe-coding.html
- ceteia 9mo ago
  Do you know of a good way to measure market share? I know of GitHub's and StackOverflow's surveys, but I'm not sure how well they reflect reality. There is also Redmonk. GitHub's survey did not say much about Rust I think, despite Rust projects often having lots of starring. Rust projects might have a greater ratio of stars-to-popularity than projects in other languages, though. StackOverflow's survey was much more optimistic or indicated popularity for Rust. Redmonk places Rust at place 19th.
  - pron 9mo ago
    The best sources are industry studies by market research companies that collect information from companies. The best public sources, IMO, are those based on job openings (as jobs correlate more with total number of lines of code than sources based on number of repos, PRs, or questions). Some of these are about a year out-of-date: https://www.devjobsscanner.com/blog/top-8-most-demanded-programming-languages/ https://www.devjobsscanner.com/blog/top-8-most-demanded-prog... https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/coding-languages https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/codin... https://www.itransition.com/developers/in-demand-programming-languages https://www.itransition.com/developers/in-demand-programming... https://www.hackerrank.com/blog/top-developer-skills-in-2025-momentum-not-mayhem/ https://www.hackerrank.com/blog/top-developer-skills-in-2025... Viewing these numbers through an optimistic or pessimistic lens is a matter of perspective and, of course, no one knows the future. But when you compare Rust, which is a middle-aged language now, to how languages that ended up "making it" were at the same age, the comparison is not favourable.