RustFest Zürich 2017 - Rust: an alternative to high-level programming languages? by Élisabeth Henry

Rust is a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast. But what’s its place for writing applications that don’t particularly need to delve into systems programming, and only need to be “not too slow”? Can it be appealing to programmers who would rather not have to deal with memory management and don’t care about the performance cost?

Can Rust’s type safety and the guarantees it brings allow a high-level programmer to be more confident, empowering them to more easily build and maintain complex applications? Or is Rust’s complexity too much of a barrier for that?

About Élisabeth Henry:
I used to work as a programmer, but I eventually gave up because I couldn’t find a job, and ended I trying to make a living selling fantasy novels. Maybe this last fact shows that I’m not a great programmer (though there might be other factors in play). I love Rust because it makes me feel more confident about the code I write, and the strict compiler compensates for my lack of discipline.