How Rust won: the quest for performant, reliable software

Abstract

For a long time, high performance has been in tension with reliability. In particular, languages designed for high performance were not memory safe, with real implications for unexpected crashes and security vulnerabilities. Rust is the first practical language to address this tension, building on affine types and other principles programming language theory, synthesized with an attention to low level systems programming. Rust’s success emerged not just from a clever idea, but consistently excellent execution and the formation of a strong community around the language. This talk will discuss several aspects of what Rust got right, as well as the rocky journey of ideas from academic theory to real world impact.