Resources for the Rust programming language

Rust is a systems programming language focused on memory safety, concurrency, and performance without a garbage collector. Created by Mozilla Research and first released in 2015, Rust has rapidly gained adoption for its ability to prevent entire classes of bugs (such as null pointer dereferences, data races, and buffer overflows) at compile time through its ownership system and borrow checker.

With its zero-cost abstractions and control over memory layout, Rust delivers C and C++ level performance while enforcing safety guarantees that traditionally required runtime checks or manual verification. The language's strong type system, pattern matching, and trait-based generics enable expressive, maintainable code, while its package manager Cargo and integrated tooling provide a modern development experience.

Rust is widely used in operating systems, browsers, embedded devices, blockchain infrastructure, and high-performance web services. Its combination of safety, speed, and growing ecosystem makes it compelling for both greenfield projects and gradually replacing unsafe code in existing systems, appealing to developers who refuse to choose between performance and reliability.

Microsoft: Windows Kernel Adopts Rust After 70% of CVEs Traced to Memory Safety

Microsoft discovered that seventy percent of all security vulnerabilities patched over twelve years stemmed from memory safety issues in their C and C++ code. These bugs (buffer overflows, use-after-free errors, dangling pointers) represented the primary attack surface for exploits targeting Windows and Azure infrastructure serving billions of users worldwide. In April 2023, David Weston, Microsoft's Vice President for OS Security, announced that Windows would begin shipping with Rust code in the kernel within weeks, marking a fundamental shift for a company with forty years of institutional investment in C and C++ development.

Microsoft rewrote the Windows graphics device interface with thirty six thousand lines of Rust code that passes all existing compatibility tests while delivering five to fifteen percent performance improvements. The company now provides official Rust support for Windows driver development, enabling third-party developers to write kernel-mode code with compile-time memory safety guarantees. Azure CTO Mark Russinovich personally championed the adoption, with Rust deployed across Azure services where memory corruption carries catastrophic consequences for cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft's commitment validates Rust's readiness for the most conservative production environments where backward compatibility and enterprise support are existential requirements. When an organization managing over one million lines of kernel code chooses incremental rewrites over maintaining the status quo, it demonstrates that memory safety is achievable without abandoning existing codebases. For engineering leaders evaluating whether memory-safe languages are production-ready or academic curiosities, Microsoft's decision provides definitive proof that Rust has become essential infrastructure rather than experimental technology.