RUST_maybe a language for 4.0 industry
Published: 2023-10-28 15:45:46

Rust, a programming language created by former Mozilla developer Graydon Hoare in 2006, is gradually making a name for itself in the developer community. As an alternative to the C++ language, Rust has demonstrated outstanding advantages in terms of security and performance, making it an ideal choice for creating web software, embedded computers, distributed services, and command-line tools. With global tech giant Microsoft gradually transitioning from C++ to Rust, the popularity of this language has further increased.

Over the years, two questions have occupied my thoughts the most:

What does a programming language truly mean to a programmer? Why do we need to continuously learn new programming languages? Can't we just stick to one? The answers to these questions depend on how you view programming languages.

In the community, there is a common saying: "A programming language is just a tool." Indeed, programming languages are tools — tools for making a living, tools for writing software. In my view, a programming language is not just a tool; it is a collection of ideas, a reflection of its era. The development of programming languages has followed the evolution of computers, embodying the ideas that drive changes in the era. So, how we use these languages and how we integrate them into our era seem to be unavoidable challenges.

My answer is: Integrating them into our production methods is likely a rational choice for us IT professionals.

So, the question is, why Rust?

Rust has become popular among programmers mainly because it has solved many problems present in other programming languages. Rust's guarantees of memory safety, high performance, and support for concurrent programming make it excel in system-level programming. Additionally, Rust's ownership system, borrow checker, and concepts of lifetimes further ensure the safety and efficiency of code.

Programming language design has long been caught in a contradiction between two seemingly irreconcilable desires: Safety. We want a strong type system to statically eliminate a large number of errors. We want automatic memory management. We want data encapsulation so that we can maintain an invariant representation of objects' private variables and ensure they won't be corrupted by untrusted code. Control. For system programming tasks such as web browsers, operating systems, or game engines, it's crucial to constrain their performance or resource usage. We want to understand the byte-level representation of data. We want to optimize the time and space usage of our programs using low-level programming techniques. We want to use bare metal when necessary. However, traditionally, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Languages like Java provide great safety guarantees at the cost of sacrificing control over the low level. As a result, for many system programming applications, the only realistic choice is to use a language like C or C++, which provides fine-grained control over resource management. But gaining this control comes at a high cost. For example, Microsoft recently reported that 70% of the security vulnerabilities they fix are due to memory safety violations, all of which could be eliminated by a strong type system. Similarly, Mozilla reported that the majority of critical errors they found in Firefox were related to memory.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have both safety and control in system programming? This is where Rust comes in.

Rust and Industry Transformation Despite the large-scale tech layoffs at the beginning of 2023, Rust, as an emerging programming language, is gradually increasing its applications in advertising and search businesses. With the continuous maturation of Generative AI (GAI) tools, Rust is expected to play a more important role in the future technological development.

The Future Development of Rust As more and more enterprises recognize the advantages of Rust in terms of security and performance, we can foresee that Rust will occupy a more important position in the IT industry in the future. Rust's high-performance characteristics make it excel in handling big data and high concurrency scenarios, while its memory safety features play a crucial role in IoT devices and embedded systems.

Rust and Industry 4.0 In the context of Industry 4.0, digital transformation has become a crucial strategy for enterprise development. With its high performance and memory safety features, Rust is expected to play a significant role in connected production and intelligent manufacturing. Enterprises can use Rust to develop efficient and reliable software systems to meet the needs of personalized production and flexible operation.

High Performance Rust's high performance mainly comes from its zero-cost abstraction and the ability to operate hardware directly. In the Industry 4.0 environment, production equipment and systems require real-time or near-real-time data processing and response. Rust can provide performance close to C++, ensuring low latency and high throughput when handling large amounts of data and high concurrency requests.

Memory Safety Rust's ownership system ensures memory safety, avoiding common memory leaks and data races found in traditional C/C++ programs. In industrial environments, the stability and reliability of systems are crucial. Any memory errors could lead to production line shutdowns or product quality issues. Rust's compile-time memory safety checks significantly reduce the likelihood of such issues.

Concurrent Programming Rust's ownership model not only guarantees memory safety but also provides strong support for concurrent programming. Systems in the Industry 4.0 environment often need to process data from multiple sensors and devices while controlling multiple execution units. Rust's concurrent programming model allows developers to write efficient and safe concurrent code more easily, improving the overall performance and response speed of the system.

Cross-Platform Support Rust supports various operating systems and hardware platforms, allowing it to run on a variety of devices in the Industry 4.0 environment, from embedded devices to servers, and to cloud platforms. This cross-platform capability enables enterprises to use a unified programming language to develop the entire production system, simplifying system maintenance and upgrades.

Learning Rust Rust has three major advantages that are worth paying attention to: High Performance. Rust is astonishingly fast and has a high memory utilization rate. Because it has no runtime or garbage collector, it can be used for high-performance services, run on embedded devices, and easily integrate with other languages. Reliability. Rust's rich type system and ownership model ensure memory safety and thread safety, allowing you to eliminate various errors during compilation. Productivity. Rust has excellent documentation, a friendly compiler with clear error messages, and first-class tools — package manager and build tool, multi-editor support with intelligent auto-completion and type checking, automatic code formatting, and more. Rust is low-level enough that, if necessary, it can be optimized like C for maximum performance. Starting today, I will explore this excellent, somewhat esoteric, but logical new language with you all. Rust_cj