In a recent survey conducted among developers regarding the state of programming language, it was revealed that there is little interest in adding new functions to Rust in the near future. The main concern among participants is the existing complexity of Rust, which they fear may increase further with future innovations.
The survey, organized by the Rust team for the eighth time, garnered responses from almost 12,000 developers. Participants highlighted the top priorities for the Rust team, with the correction of compiler errors (67.9%) taking the lead, followed by improving performance during execution (57.45%) and accelerating compilation time (44.68%). Only 28.92% of respondents prioritized new language functions.
Developers expressed concerns about the potential complications of Rust, with 43% viewing it as the main threat to the language’s future. Other significant issues identified were insufficient utilization (42.5%) and lack of developer support and resources for Rust (32.1%).
Despite worries about the complexity, developers remain highly satisfied with Rust, with over 84% agreeing that code in Rust generally contains fewer errors compared to other languages. The main reasons for choosing Rust were the ability to create error-free (85.8%) and high-performance (83.3%) software.
Interestingly, 70% of developers find programming in Rust enjoyable, although this percentage has slightly decreased from the previous year. The survey also revealed that only 33.9% of respondents actively use Rust in their work tasks, indicating that the language is still in the early stages of implementation.
When it comes to operating systems, Linux is the top choice among Rust developers (69.7%), followed by MacOS (33.5%) and then Windows (31.9%). The survey also indicated an increase in using Linux as a target platform for deploying Rust applications.
Visual Studio Code remains the preferred development tool for Rust (61.7%), but the new Rustrover by Jetbrains, released in September 2023, has already attracted 16.4% of developers.
The Rust team plans to improve the wording of future survey questions to address some confusion. However, it is evident that developers value efforts to correct existing issues in Rust more than the addition of new functions, suggesting that major changes are unlikely in the language in the coming years.