Last year's Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey put Rust as the most admired programming language, with nearly 85% of respondents saying they're willing to learn and use it in future projects. And you can't blame them. Rust is a general-purpose programming language with three objectives in mind: speed, memory safety, and concurrency. While every other language can probably say the same thing, Rust is one of the very few to have actually done it all.
Rust is a relatively young programming language. Developers specializing in Rust are still a rarity, at least for now and likely for the next few years. Be that as it may, Cad Crowd is a well-connected staffing agency backed by tens of thousands of professional freelance programmers and developers with combined experience in all programming languages, web frameworks, libraries, and embedded systems. We are here to help your company discover and hire the most talented Rust developers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond.
Whether you're making software or web apps, memory management is among the biggest concerns. You don't want it to use too much memory or risk memory leak issues, but you can't afford to have a sluggish program, which will only drive users away from your business.
Much about Rust programming language is the way it almost entirely eliminates the problem with memory management. Here’s how.
As Clive Thompson described it in his article published last year in MIT Technology Review, the dynamic memory of a computer could be very crudely visualized as a chalkboard. Each time software runs on a computer, it constantly adds bits of data to the chalkboard and keeps track of where the bits are. Since there is only a finite amount of space in the chalkboard, the software also has to erase unnecessary bits as soon as they're no longer required for it to run.
Programming languages are designed to handle memory management in different ways. For instance, C or C++ allows developers to manually configure how the process is done, including when the software can access and manage the data on the chalkboard. Such languages exert little control but instead treat the developers as true superusers with the authority to determine the exact manner of chalkboard management.
In the hands of skillful developers, the software can indeed run very fast and in the most efficient way possible. This is the main reason that C and C++ are often the programming languages of choice to write firmware, a type of software that interacts directly with the hardware. Most devices or machines that have no operating systems (like Linux or Windows), including everything from radio clocks to car ECUs, run on such codes. Windows, macOS, and Linux kernels are written in C because there are many instances when the operating systems have to communicate with hardware directly.
As far as memory management is concerned, no matter how speedy the programs are, those two older programming languages are not exactly what you can call "practical." The developers must always keep track of what bits of data are written on the chalkboard and when to delete them to make new available space for new data. Efficiency, or even the basic functioning of the software, depends on how well the developers define the process. If the software erases or overwrites data that's still in use, it will crash; on the other hand, leftover bits of data on the chalkboard create vulnerabilities, especially if the bits are about financial information, personal data, passwords, etc. As the software gets bigger, developers are becoming more prone to making mistakes.
The newer generation of programming languages, such as Python, JavaScript, and Java, come with an entirely different approach to chalkboard management. Rather than giving too much power to developers over how to deal with the chalkboard optimization, the languages barely give away any control at all. They all have automatic "garbage collectors" to periodically clean up the memory as the software is running. If precise chalkboard management is everything that you care about in software, those languages are nothing short of perfection. Thanks to automatic garbage collectors, it's almost impossible for developers to write codes that have memory mistakes.
But then again, there is also a trade-off. Using an automated memory management process means the developers sacrifice a large chunk of control over the software behavior. Also, garbage collectors are a heavy overhead that drags performance down; automatic memory management takes up precious processing time.
Before a true solution comes along, the programming world is divided into two categories. Use C or C++ if you need software that runs fast and close to the hardware; for everything else, anything with automatic garbage collectors will do. It has been the preferable way for decades, and this is where Rust kicks in.
Rust has a simple yet monumental objective: it needs to bridge the difference between automatic garbage collectors and manual memory management without all the drawbacks associated with either. And that's exactly what it does. Rust's memory management works like garbage collectors in the sense that developers never have to manually configure the process, but at the same time, it imposes loads of strict rules to govern how the data can be manipulated (copied, erased, accessed, etc.) within the software. In a sense, the developers also never really lose control over the chalkboard thanks to the strict rules imposed.
Another great feature is concurrency safety. Most modern programs run many services at once or concurrently if you like. It only makes sense if some of those threads want (or need) to access the same bits of data in the chalkboard at once; this, too, may lead to a crash, given the lack of strict concurrency safety. Rust prevents multiple threads from modifying the same memory bits at the same time.
The trade-off with Rust is that developers familiar with C, C++, Java, JavaScript, and Python (which probably account for 80% of developers out there) will have to re-learn their trade. A different programming method also requires a different approach. Learning all the strict rules in Rust won't be a walk in the park even for experienced developers, and the codes will be more difficult to write. The reward is memory-safe software that runs fast thanks to zero runtime overhead and without fears of memory bugs.
In case the memory management alone is not convincing enough, perhaps some examples below might encourage you to use Rust for your next projects:
Officially released in 2015, Rust is a relatively young programming language that has been adopted by some of the most prominent software companies, operating systems, and web-based services.
Let’s make one thing clear: Rust is not an easy programming language to master, but the reward is worth the effort for the developers and the employers hiring them. Of course, the primary duty of the developers is to write software and back-end in Rust; depending on the project, the task may also involve rewriting codes from other languages into Rust or adding more features to existing software.
Because it’s not typically the first programming language taught to beginners, the vast majority of Rust developers are actually well-versed in at least one or two of the following: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, Node.js, SQL, and MySQL. When looking for a Rust developer, Cad Crowd focuses mostly on candidates with respectable experience in the programming language and expertise in several different projects.
We determine the job requirement in accordance with the open position in your company so as to avoid having to filter out too many irrelevant applicants during the early screening process, for example:
Instead of listing every single programming language, web framework, and database system in existence in the job requirement, it’s best to include only task-specific technical competence. Such a method is intended to narrow down the pool of targeted talents, as you will only attract qualified candidates.
Reach out to Cad Crowd, and our recruiters will be glad to provide a comprehensive walkthrough of how we conduct a targeted hiring process. We listen to your needs and devise a custom staffing solution to address every single one of them accordingly. Backed by our extensive network of professional programmers and a massive talent database in our hands, rest assured that there are always the perfect Rust developers to fill the open positions in your company.
Ready to bring Rust's efficiency, performance, and safety to your software development project? The dedicated Rust developers at Cad Crowd are poised to deliver customized solutions tailored to your specific needs. Take advantage of the opportunity to transform your software strategy with the help of our skilled Rust developers. Request a free quote from us today and embark on your journey to a successful software project. Your perfect Rust developer is just a click away with Cad Crowd!
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