Hey, there's a local Rust meetup
in the Triangle area!
Check them out!
meetup.com/triangle-rustaceans/
rust:
Systems Programming For The
Rest Of US
Get these slides at slides.com/bstrie/ato-2017
but first, A Quick Teaser...
# Python ranges
for i in range(0, n):
# Do something n times// Rust ranges
for i in 0..n {
// Do something n times
}// Javascript closures
let x = 2;
let y = (z) => z + x;
y(3); // 5// Rust closures
let x = 2;
let y = |z| x + z;
y(3);# Ruby iterators
(0...x).inject(0) {|sum, i| sum + i}// Rust iterators
(0..x).fold(0, |sum, i| sum + i); Assembly for above example
lea eax, [rdi - 1]
lea ecx, [rdi - 2]
imul rcx, rax
shr rcx
lea eax, [rcx + rdi - 1]((n - 1) * (n - 2) >> 1) + n - 1
// Rust iterators
(0..n).fold(0, |sum, i| sum + i)What Is Rust?
- Systems language originally from Mozilla
- Developed in the open by a large community of contributors and several full-time employees
What Is Systems Programming?
- Nothing stands between you and the hardware at runtime
- No code runs that you didn't ask for
- Provides the foundational layers that other layers build upon
Why make a new language?
- Browsers compete on performance, and today that demands concurrency
- Browsers are a critical attack vector, and today that demands memory safety
What is memory safety?
- Memory management errors are a distinct class of programming bugs
- 50% of all critical security bugs in Firefox are because of subtle memory errors
- Nearly all languages today use garbage collection to prevent memory errors
What about C?
- C has many good qualities, but protection against memory errors is not among them
- Invented in an era when networking was rare, security was not prioritized, and the impact of memory errors on security was not well-researched
What about Other langs?
- All popular systems languages build on C and inherit C's challenges
- Even less popular languages don't provide satisfactory solutions to our problems
What about modern C++?
- Plugging up memory safety holes clashes with backwards compatibility
- Modern revisions focus mostly on usability, sometimes even to the detriment of memory safety
decltype(auto) foo() {
int x = 1;
return x;
}
decltype(auto) bar() {
int x = 1;
return (x);
}What Is one to do, then?
- Merely extending an existing language to add memory safety would break compatibility anyway
- If you're going to be compatible with nothing, might as well start from scratch with the things modern devs expect
Where is Rust being used?
- Mozilla, for application development
- Dropbox, for backend development
- Chucklefish, for game development
- Tilde, for runtime extension
- Tock, for embedded development
Who'd benefit from rust?
- Veteran systems programmers looking for memory safety guarantees
- High-level programmers looking to learn best practices for systems programming
- Full-stack teams with shared responsibilities
How to write it?
- Text editor support for vim, emacs, etc.
- IDE support via plugins, especially VSCode, and official plugin support from Intellij
- forge.rust-lang.org/ides.html
How to debug it?
- Tools that work with C++ tend to work with Rust, e.g. LLDB
- Official support from GDB
How to Get it?
- Increasingly available in distro package managers
- Official installer with toolchain at rust-lang.org/install.html
How to learn it?
- Official free e-book, "The Rust Programming Language" doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/second-edition/
- Online standard library reference doc.rust-lang.org/std/index.html
- Dive right in rustbyexample.com
- Introductory screencasts intorust.com
- "Programming Rust" by O'Reilly
How to re-use it?
- Take advantage of our central package resource, crates.io
- Integrates with our official package manager, Cargo, which comes bundled with the Rust installation
How to talk about it?
- Official forums on users.rust-lang.org
- Official IRC channels at irc.mozilla.org
- Official development repositories at github.com/rust-lang/rust
- Subreddit at reddit.com/r/rust
What features does it have?
Well, let's see how much time we have left...
Thanks for coming!
go forth and rust!
Get these slides at slides.com/bstrie/ato-2017
Rust: Systems programming for the rust of us
By bstrie
