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Rust? Like what's on some metals?
(i.imgflip.com)
Iron Oxide. Everyone else is wrong.
Ferrous oxide innit?
Wustite, ferrous oxide, is black. FeO.
Typical rust, usually found as hematite, is Fe2O3 and is red/brown. Also an iron oxide.
Magnetite is also another black iron oxide, Fe3O4.
There are quite a few other flavors of iron and oxygen too.
flavors of iron
Yum yum
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It's a brutally competitive and toxic game.
It's a programming language, which is particularly relevant for Linux, because it doesn't require a runtime (separate program that runs the code). This allows it to be used in the kernel.
But it also means that it's very good for building libraries. With a small bit of extra work, virtually any other programming language can call libraries implemented in Rust (like you can with libraries implemented in C).
Add to that, that Rust allows for performance similar to C and makes lots of typical C bugs impossible, and suddenly you've got folks rewriting all kinds of C libraries and applications in Rust, which is something you might have also heard about.
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Actual answer:
Rust is a relatively new programming language. Similar to C or C++ it compiles directly into executable binary code so it can be used for bare metal or low level operating system programming. It is thus relevant to Linux kernel development as things like drivers can and are being developed in Rust.
Compare this to the likes of Java or C# which get compiled to bytecode or a kind of pseudo machine code that gets run in a virtual machine, which has advantages for application development, or something like Python which is interpreted (or just-in-time compiled) at run-time, useful as an end user scripting language.
Rust is designed from the ground up to tackle some modern problems, a key one being memory safety. It's a lot more paranoid about memory allocation and access and it's structured around this. Older languages like C allow the programmer a lot more absolute control over the hardware, which effectively means the C programmer has a lot more footguns in his toolbox. Theoretically, Rust offers fewer opportunities for the developer to shoot himself in the foot.
Rust also comes with some really cool tooling. Compiler errors usually point straight at the problem and say something like "Shouldn't there be a colon here?" The build system, called Cargo, is really slick in a lot of ways, handling linking, compiling, even library package management in a very automatic fashion. It's real slick to work with.
As with anything, fans of the language can be a bit much; they stereotypically suggest rewriting everything under the sun in Rust whether it makes sense or not, and this includes the Linux kernel, which has caused some friction in the community; Linux contributors are often very accustomed to C and some don't want to deal with anything else.
I like the description by a Finn who said: Rust is like a car with automatic, while in C (or Zig) you need to change the gears. In Rust you literally follow the compiler, which allows many young developers to program at low level, while C demands more time to avoid bugs. It is up to each person what he/she prefers. I would prefer to control myself the stuff and learn the in and outs of memory management.
It's fair to want to learn (and it's certainly a good skill to have), but the question is what you'd rather see in a large, production environment. Guard rails are usually there for a reason. As for the control: you actually can program memory-unsafe (and in kernel development you often have to!) in Rust. The difference is that in Rust it's explicitly marked by an unsafe block:
unsafe {
...
}
That way you get the same, fine-grained control over low-level processes, but someone else reading your code can at a glace spot where potential memory bugs may be.
In the end, languages are a tool. Especially for personal projects, everyone should just go with what's fun to them. I personally think it makes sense, logistically, to slowly transition legacy C-based projects to Rust, because it makes onboarding new developers easier, while keeping the same memory safety that requires years of experience otherwise, basically for free. But there's really no rush to rewrite anything that's working well in Rust
The sound bite I heard was "the unsafe keyword makes memory bugs greppable."
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Rust is a programming language designed to run on crabs. It just happens to also run on computers. When rust programmers talk about the borrow checker, that's something born directly out of having to run on crabs. It's difficult to get the little guys to cooperate otherwise. And when they talk about rust having good error messages that's because of the crabs too. The compiler is not just some piece of software, it's a piece of software being run on crabs and the crabs have some measure of intuition to them. Basically what I'm saying is that carcinization applies to computer hardware.
Rust is when you run DOOM on 16 billion crabs. You can't do that in other languages. Just ask Amelia Airheart.
The bane of Intel CPUs, and a trigger word for C geriatrics.
Back in my day we coded in assembly and we liked it that way!
Back in my day I didn't code at all and I liked it that way!
(My day was today)
It’s a 2025 movie, starring Alec Baldwin, that gained notoriety in 2021, when a cinematographer was accidentally killed by a live round fired from a prop-revolver that Alex Baldwin was using.
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It's a cult.
cargo cult
Have you heard of our lord and savior memory management?
No, not those other false gods
Rust is both a nice programming language, and an obnoxious social movement made of a small minority of Rust programmers who are very loud
oh I don't consider them obnoxious. I'm from Python-land, they've been saving our asses with good tooling lol. the quality of output from the rust ecosystem speaks for itself
uv <3
who are very loud
Most of the "should we or should we not" discourses/dramas I've read about were initiated or escalated by the anti-Rust crowd. They seem to be a lot more vocal (not to mention impolite) about their opinions than actual Rust developers.
Specifically in the Linux kernel, the 2 big reasons to use it are memory safety (huuuuggee benefit) and that a lot of younger devs like it and thus it will attract their contributions.
The only reasons I can think of to not use it are that some people want their own toolchain and having multiple languages in the kernel adds complication. But tbh, none of that justifies banning Rust stuff that realistically wouldn't have been written at all if C were the only option.
And then there's the people who show up in Phoronix, HN, Reddit, and YouTube comments saying Rust is over-hyped without showing why it's unfit for purpose and also trying to dictate what someone does with their own project. Perhaps it's something to do with the representation of queer people and other minorities in the Rust community, because otherwise I do not understand why people would be sooo passionate in hating the Rust community like the group I described above is.
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That's rather rude and untrue ..... the programming language isn't at all nice! /s
ducks and runs away
small minority of Rust programmers who are very loud
They also list "written in Rust" as the primary feature of software they write, even though the majority of users don't care as long as it works properly.
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It's a survival crafting game where players help each other survive the world with mutual cooperation, kind words and absolutely no Nazi or racist behaviour.
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step one get hrt prescription
step two learn rust
step three buy socks
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a low level language that has really nice features when compared to c and c++, but honestly i find it difficult to read. probably my lack of experience with it, tho.
A type of person whos apartment would be a mess cause they never collect their garbage, but they have a good memory where they put things and what they need, so it is never a problem.
Programming language like many others It has some fancy borrow checker that makes memory usage get statically analyzed by the compiler, so you dont have to manually manage memory, and the program won't need a garbage collector
so you dont have to manually manage memory
Not sure how this got upvoted with this glaring mistake. You have to manage memory. The point is that the compiler catches it if you make a memory management mistake, making things like data races, uses after frees, etc. literally impossible (short of intentionally using the unsafe tag).
I think it's debatable whether RAII should be called "memory management". Whether dealing with Rust or modern C++, you don't need to "manage" the memory beyond specifying a container that will determine its lifecycle behavior, and then you just let it drop.
You could certainly choose to manage it more granularly than that in Rust or C++, but in the vast majority of cases that would be considered bad practice.
That's a qualitatively different user experience than C or pre-2011 boostless C++ where you actually need to explicitly delete all your heap allocations and manually keep track of which pointers are still valid. Lumping both under "memory management" makes the term so broad that it almost loses its significance.
Yeah, as I understand, in the terms of language design theory, it is technically still "manual memory management". But since you don't end up writing malloc() and free(), many refer to it as "semi-automatic" instead, which certainly feels more accurate.
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It's for programmers who need their Imposter Syndrome amplified.
It's for people who suffer from severe anxiety when they see stuff like:
-> or * for example. /j
It's a type of fungus.
Rust is iron oxide, mostly used to make thermite
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this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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