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185 lines
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Markdown
185 lines
10 KiB
Markdown
_This is my response to the [call for community blog posts reflecting on
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Rust][rust2018] in 2017 and proposing goals and directions for 2018. See also
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[#Rust2018 on Twitter][#Rust2018]._
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2017 saw some great progress in the Rust space. The project had a [clear roadmap for the
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year][rust-roadmap] and followed it quite closely. It was a pleasure to see the
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outcomes of the 2017 survey systematically addressed in the roadmap.
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Over the course of the year we saw some software outside of Firefox and
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developer tools (such as [rustfmt], [racer], [rustup]) gain wider use and make
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it into OS package archives. At the time of writing there are [17 ports
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dependent on rust in the FreeBSD ports tree][rust-ports], and [20 packages in
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the Arch Linux package repos][arch-rust] including:
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- [bingrep](https://github.com/m4b/bingrep) --- grep for binaries (executables)
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- [pijul](https://pijul.org/) --- distributed version control system
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- [tokei](https://github.com/Aaronepower/tokei) --- count lines of code, quickly
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- [xi-core](https://github.com/google/xi-editor) --- a text editor
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- [librespot](https://github.com/plietar/librespot) --- open source Spotify client library
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- [exa](https://the.exa.website/) --- a more user friendly replacement for `ls`
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- [fd](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd) --- a more user friendly alternative to `find`
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- [flowgger](https://github.com/jedisct1/flowgger) --- a fast log data collector
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- [ripgrep](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/) --- a faster alternative to grep and ack
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- [xsv](https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv) --- a toolkit for manipulating and extracting data from CSV
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- [alacritty](https://github.com/jwilm/alacritty) --- A cross-platform, GPU-accelerated terminal emulator
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As I spoke about at the [September Melbourne Rust Meetup][rust-talk], I think
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adoption of tools written in Rust outside the Rust community helps increase
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adoption of the language as whole. It means [packaging systems are updated to
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support Rust][uses-cargo], tools are exposed to more diverse environments, and
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people are more likely to raise bugs or contribute fixes and improvements. They
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may even learn some Rust in the process.
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We also saw the initial release of Futures and [Tokio] --- the initial answer
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to how Rust will support asynchronous I/O. I think these components will be
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essential in making Rust a viable option for people wanting to build network
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daemons and HTTP micro-services that can compete with the likes of
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[Node.js][node] and [Go]. I found the fact that Futures were architected in a
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way that upholds the [abstraction without overhead][zero-cost] (zero-cost
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abstractions) goal of Rust to be particularly impressive.
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## 2018
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With most of 2018 ahead there are four areas that I would like to see Rust
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improve on this year:
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1. Become a better option for building network daemons and HTTP
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micro-services.
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1. Continue to improve the discoverability and approachability of crates and
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Rust's web presence in general.
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1. Gain wider, more diverse tier-1 platform support (especially on servers).
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1. Start delivering on the prospect of safer system components, with fewer
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security holes.
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### Network Services
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There's a [lot of interest these days in HTTP micro-services][microservices-trend],
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often running in containers on clusters. This is an area that Go does quite well at.
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Its minimal runtime, language level async support, core http library, and easy
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cross compilation make it well suited to this task. Node.js too can work well for
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these types of services. On the face of it Rust should be as good or better than
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Go and Node at these types of services with its even smaller runtime footprint,
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sophisticated type system and extra guarantees. However, until Tokio matures it's
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not really in the running.
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I would like to see work continue on stabilising [async/await][async-await],
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stabilisation of [Hyper] and support for [HTTP/2][hyper-http2]. So that when
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a decision is being made about which technology to use for these types of services
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Rust is one of the contenders.
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### Improve Rust's Web Presence
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This is in part a continuation of the 2017 goal, [Rust should provide easy
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access to high quality crates][rust-crates] and the, [Improve the
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Approachability of the Design of rust-lang.org and/or
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crates.io](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/06/27/Increasing-Rusts-Reach.html#3-improve-the-approachability-of-the-design-of-rust-langorg-andor-cratesio)
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proposal in the [Increasing Rust's Reach][rust-reach] program.
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Having a consistent, approachable, discoverable, and well designed web presence
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makes it easier for visitors to find what they're looking for and adds signals
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of credibility, attention to detail, and production readiness to the project.
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It would be wonderful to see the proposal above picked up and completed.
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The large amount of Rust code that already exists is not particularly visible
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unless you know to look on crates.io or GitHub. Crates and Rust libraries
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should be more discoverable through traditional search engines. [Aside from the
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static documentation, no pages on crates.io show up as search results on
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DuckDuckGo][ddg-results]. They do show up in Google but the titles and
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descriptions shown often aren't super useful.
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When posting links to crates on Twitter or Slack, there is no rich preview,
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which would help potential visitors know more about the link and what they
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will find there.
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<figure>
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<img src="/images/2018/crate-tweet.png" width="586" alt="Screenshot showing how a crate looks when tweeted." />
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<figcaption>How a crate looks when [tweeted](https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/936749790553083905).</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<figure>
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<img src="/images/2018/npm-tweet.png" width="589" alt="Screenshot showing how an npm package looks when tweeted." />
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<figcaption>How an npm package looks when [tweeted](https://twitter.com/jaredforsyth/status/949497032087146498).</figcaption>
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</figure>
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The [Rust Cookbook][rust-cookbook] is an excellent resource, especially for
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those just starting out. It should graduate from the nursery and be made more
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discoverable, perhaps by integrating it with the [categories on
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crates.io][crate-categories].
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### Platform Support
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Currently there are three [OSes with tier 1 support][platform-support]: Linux,
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macOS, and Windows. These are the three most popular OSes and it's great that
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they're all supported. However, it would be great to see more OSes gain tier 1
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support. Platform diversity makes Rust a viable option for more projects and
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can also [help find bugs][llvm-linker-bug].
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Personally I would like to see [FreeBSD] promoted to tier 1 support. This would
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be difficult at first as CI infrastructure would need to be built, contributors
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would need to learn to address issues that would [break the build on
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FreeBSD][freebsd-nightly-broken], etc. but in the end it would be easier to add
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more platforms in the future and the ecosystem would be more robust for it.
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### System Components and Increased Safety
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One of Rust's strengths is memory safety. Jokes about, "Rewrite it Rust", and
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the [Rust Evangelism Strike Force][resf] aside there has been a lot of talk
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about the possibility for Rust to prevent some common causes of vulnerabilities
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in C and C++ code. It would be nice to see some of this talk turn into action.
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I'm not talking about rewiting Linux or [cURL] in Rust but start with replacing
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some high value parts of existing C libraries like what Federico Mena-Quintero
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has done with [librsvg].
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Maybe these start as forks/experimental branches that can be used as drop in
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substitutes for the original so that adventurous users on bleeding edge systems
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like Arch, FreeBSD, or Gentoo could test them out.
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While this is perhaps less of a goal for the Rust project and more of one for
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the Rust community there are parts of it that relate to the project. For
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example building these hybrid libraries would surely exercise and provide
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feedback for the ongoing task to [improve the ability for Rust projects to
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integrate with existing build systems][rust-build-systems].
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## Conclusion
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So they are my hopes and dreams for Rust in 2018. I feel that in some ways I'm
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just sitting back telling other people about all the hard work they should do.
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On the other hand I feel like I am contributing as well by writing and
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publishing Rust code, doing talks, and providing bug reports and pull requests.
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Here's to another successful year of Rust ahead!
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[mgattozzi]: https://mgattozzi.com/rust-wasm
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[resf]: https://twitter.com/rustevangelism
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[arch-rust]: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/rust/
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[rust-ports]: https://www.freshports.org/search.php?stype=depends_all&method=match&query=lang%2Frust&num=100&orderby=category&orderbyupdown=asc&search=Search&format=html&branch=head
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[rust2018]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2018/01/03/new-years-rust-a-call-for-community-blogposts.html
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[#Rust2018]: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23Rust2018&src=typd
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[rust-roadmap]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/02/06/roadmap.html
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[rustfmt]: https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/rustfmt
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[racer]: https://github.com/phildawes/racer
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[rustup]: https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/rustup.rs
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[rust-talk]: /technical/2017/09/rust-tools-talk/
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[Tokio]: https://tokio.rs/
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[node]: https://nodejs.org/
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[Go]: https://golang.org/
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[uses-cargo]: https://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2017-04-2017-06.html#A-New-USES-Macro-for-Porting-Cargo-Based-Rust-Applications
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[zero-cost]: http://blog.rust-lang.org/2015/05/11/traits.html
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[rust-build-systems]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/12/21/rust-in-2017.html#rust-should-integrate-easily-into-large-build-systems
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[rust-servers]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/12/21/rust-in-2017.html#rust-should-be-well-equipped-for-writing-robust-servers
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[rust-crates]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/12/21/rust-in-2017.html#rust-should-provide-easy-access-to-high-quality-crates
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[rust-reach]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/06/27/Increasing-Rusts-Reach.html
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[rust-cookbook]: https://rust-lang-nursery.github.io/rust-cookbook/
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[crate-categories]: https://crates.io/categories
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[ddg-results]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Acrates.io&t=ffab&ia=web
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[platform-support]: https://forge.rust-lang.org/platform-support.html
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[llvm-linker-bug]: https://twitter.com/wezm/status/931124516054491137
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[freebsd-nightly-broken]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/43427
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[FreeBSD]: https://www.freebsd.org/
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[cURL]: https://curl.haxx.se/
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[librsvg]: https://people.gnome.org/~federico/news-2016-10.html#25
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[microservices-trend]: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=microservices
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[Hyper]: https://hyper.rs/
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[async-await]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/issues/1081
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[hyper-http2]: https://github.com/hyperium/hyper/issues/304
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