Computing Atlas

How Computing Was Built
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Rust

Systems Language

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Rust is a multi-paradigm, general-purpose programming language created by Graydon Hoare, begun as a personal project in 2006 while he worked at Mozilla; Mozilla began officially sponsoring the project in 2009. It combines low-level control over performance with high-level convenience and safety guarantees, enforcing memory safety, meaning that all references point to valid memory, without a conventional garbage collector, through an ownership and borrowing system that was in place by 2010. Rust reached its first stable release, 1.0, in May 2015, and Mozilla funded development until 2021, when the Rust Foundation took over as primary sponsor.

Facts
Paradigm
Multi-paradigm: systems, functional, imperative, concurrent and generic programming 1
Significance
Rust popularized ownership and borrow-checking as a way to guarantee memory safety at compile time without a garbage collector, a design that let it compete directly with C and C++ in systems programming, including in the Linux kernel and major web browser engines. Its 1.0 release stated that reaching stability did not mean the language was finished, and Rust has continued under a six-week train release model with community and, since 2021, Rust Foundation stewardship after Mozilla's own funding ended. 2
Disputed
First Released
2010 1
Rust's own history has several distinct milestones cited as its year: Graydon Hoare began it as a personal project in 2006, Mozilla began sponsoring it in 2009, the language was first publicly unveiled in 2010, the first numbered 0.1 release followed in January 2012, and the first stable 1.0 release shipped in May 2015. 2010 is used here as the commonly cited public-unveiling year; see the description for the fuller timeline.
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Sources
1. Wikipedia: Rust (programming language)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory sectionView the Source
1. Wikipedia: Rust (programming language)
Wikimedia FoundationIntroductionView the Source
2. Rust Blog: Announcing Rust 1.0
Rust ProjectRelease announcementView the Source
Wikipedia: Graydon Hoare
Wikimedia FoundationInvented By: Graydon Hoare, 2006-2009: Early years sectionView the Source
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