Rust is a compiled, hybrid imperative/object- oriented/functional language. It appeals directly to any C++ developer who has battled with memory management, and Python developers who long for faster code. So why might you be interested in learning Rust? It’s compiled, so it’s fast. Rust uses LLVM as the compilation engine, and benefits from all its optimisation and native code generation support that targets ARM and Intel processors.

Rust uses type inference, so you can write cleaner, simpler code while retaining the benefits of strong static typing. It also supports generic and algebraic types, which offers a far richer type system than C++.

There are no NULL pointers, thus rendering an entire class of bugs impossible. This alone is worth a serious look, as the security and reliability implications are huge.

Rust is a brace-oriented like C/C++, so many aspects of the syntax will be immediately familiar to existing developers.

Memory ownership semantics are rich, strict and enforced. There are owned pointers, shared pointers and optional garbage-collection.

Rust has first-class concurrency support, featuring lightweight tasks and message passing.

What does it look like? I would describe it as terse - or rather, minimalist.

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world");
}

Ok, that’s not very useful. How about a naïve Fibonacci function:

fn fib(n: uint) -> uint {
    match n {
        0..1    => 1,
        _       => fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)
    }
}

Yes, Rust has pattern matching just like Haskell. Forget about the simple switch statement - match is super-powerful and flexible, supporting ranges, options and destructuring fields from structs.

What about some tasks:

fn test_tasks() {
    println("About to spawn...");

    do spawn {
        println("Hello from the first subtask!");
    }

    do spawn {
        println("Hello from another subtask!");
    }
}

Despite having spent years working in C++, I have often lamented its shortcomings. Yet until recently, no other language seems to have come close to competing with C++ as a systems language.

The D programming language looks very interesting, and aims to provide a worthy alternative to C++. However, last time I looked, there was a schism over the runtime libraries which made adoption difficult. Uncertainty about such a fundamental aspect is not reassuring for potential users.

The Go programming language from Google is fantastic, and I have already used it on a number of small projects. The only shortcoming I see here is the garbage collection, which makes real-time systems impractical.

Rust has great promise, and also has both Mozilla and Samsung backing its progress. There is a vibrant, friendly and smart community behind it, and a growing number of third-party libraries are supported. I am very optimistic about the future of Rust, and look forward to contributing.