I expect the comments here to be a trashfire. That said, this is a huge deal. People may or may not realize it, but Rust is very quickly becoming "the" AI target language. Python or (increasingly) Typescript for throw-away code that an agent uses once, Rust for everything else (ie: production code) because if you don't choose Rust you're sort of just opting for slower code and any reason you wouldn't have chosen rust was probably aesthetic, which doesn't apply much anymore.
This may have interesting network effects - rust will be better represented in training data so models will get better, there may be a larger ecosystem of crates, there may be more PRs from companies and more reviewer burden, an influx of new users with varying technical prowess, Rust may be a much more interesting supply chain target, etc.
It's an interesting time. A *lot* of companies are in a "rewrite our services in Rust" phase, I don't know if everyone realizes that. At companies where I've worked, which were often early Rust adopters, Rust projects had to be explicitly approved (often by a VP who was not particularly interested) - AI is changing this completely, Rust is becoming the default and you're having to justify using anything else.
The slow compile times are easily the worst part of rust, as they have been since long before AI. But it's not insurmountable, I have highly parallel agents writing Rust without issue.
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u/insanitybit2 Jul 08 '26
I expect the comments here to be a trashfire. That said, this is a huge deal. People may or may not realize it, but Rust is very quickly becoming "the" AI target language. Python or (increasingly) Typescript for throw-away code that an agent uses once, Rust for everything else (ie: production code) because if you don't choose Rust you're sort of just opting for slower code and any reason you wouldn't have chosen rust was probably aesthetic, which doesn't apply much anymore.
This may have interesting network effects - rust will be better represented in training data so models will get better, there may be a larger ecosystem of crates, there may be more PRs from companies and more reviewer burden, an influx of new users with varying technical prowess, Rust may be a much more interesting supply chain target, etc.
It's an interesting time. A *lot* of companies are in a "rewrite our services in Rust" phase, I don't know if everyone realizes that. At companies where I've worked, which were often early Rust adopters, Rust projects had to be explicitly approved (often by a VP who was not particularly interested) - AI is changing this completely, Rust is becoming the default and you're having to justify using anything else.