Credit: Dreamstime
Use of the Rust programming language is on the rise, with respondents to a recent survey about the language reporting an uptick in weekly usage. However, some users also reported struggles.
Among those surveyed who are using Rust, 81 per cent were using the language on at least a weekly basis, compared to 72 per cent in last year’s survey. Of all Rust users, 75 per cent said they are able to write production-ready code but 27 per cent said it was at times a struggle to write useful, production-ready code.
These findings were included in Rust Survey 2021 Results, the latest edition of the Rust community’s annual report on usage of the language, published February 15. While the survey pointed toward a growing, healthy community of “Rustaceans,” it also found challenges. In particular, Rust users would like to see improvements in compile times, disk usage, debugging, and GUI development.
The Rust Survey 2021 Results report was based on a survey of 9,354 respondents in December 2021. The number of participants grew by roughly 1,500 responses compared to last year’s total.
In other findings, for those who adopted Rust at work, 83 per cent found it “challenging.” But it was unclear how much of this was a Rust-specific issue or general challenges posed by adopting a new language. During adoption, only 13 per cent of respondents believed the language was slowing their team down while 82 per cent believed Rust helped their teams achieve their goals.
Of the respondents using Rust, 59 per cent use it at least occasionally at work and 23 per cent use it for the majority of their coding. Last year, only 42 per cent used Rust at work.
Meanwhile, and of the respondents using Rust at work, 89 per cent said their teams found it enjoyable and fun to program.
The top reason given by respondents for why they use Rust at work was that Rust allowed them “to build relatively correct and bug-free software" and only three per cent of those surveyed said Rust was a risky choice for production use.
