The Chromium Project will support the Rust programming language

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Something to look forward to: Created by software developer Graydon Hoare while working at Mozilla Research in 2006, Rust keeps growing in popularity and winning new supporters among big tech corporations. Even Google is now looking at integrating the new(ish) language in its Chrome browser.

Rust was sponsored and supported by Mozilla as a way to build a new, more secure and better performing web browser. Now, Google will soon start using the language for its own Chromium project, which means Mountain View is seemingly preparing a more secure future for the ubiquitous Chrome browser.

Chrome Security Team member Dana Jansens announced the new development through Google's Security Blog. Moving forward, the Chromium project is going to support libraries written in Rust. The developers are already working on a production Rust toolchain to add to the Chrome build system, which should bring actual Rust code to Chrome binary files "within the next year."

Rust is a modern, general-purpose programming language that offers native performance for several types of compiled applications – from traditional computer software to low-resource and embedded appliances. Furthermore, Rust is designed to provide memory safety from the get go, eliminating many classes of bugs and potential vulnerabilities at compile time.

Google thanks Mozilla for the "huge contribution to the systems software industry," despite the fact that Chrome and Firefox are two competing browsers and Mozilla Foundation would essentially cease to exist without Google's money. "Rust has been an incredible proof that we should be able to expect a language to provide safety while also being performant," Jansens wrote.

As Rust and C++ are two programming languages born out of different designs, Rust integration in Chromium will arrive only through third-party libraries for the time being. Interoperability between the two languages could be an issue too, so Google developers will need to be extra cautious when making the two code types talk to each other.

Despite this and the burden of using two different programming languages for one huge project like the Chromium layout engine, Rust could be a huge help in making Chrome more secure. Memory safety flaws, which are the issues Rust programming is designed to eliminate, represent 70 percent of the worst security bugs discovered in Chromium.

"Memory unsafety is an industry-wide problem," Jansens remarked, and "making use of Rust is one part of a strategy to move the needle in this area."

Google is working on improving security in C++ code too, of course, as the 38-year old language is still used to write millions of lines in the Chrome code.

Image credit: Chris Ried

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97264-chromium-project-support-rust-programming-language.html

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Am I the only one who thinks it's an aberration that there are so many programming languages?

 

[human7]

Am I the only one who thinks it's an aberration that there are so many programming languages?

The more, the merrier! I mean, why not? The different languages solve different problems, or fit in different niches.

 

[Tams80]

Am I the only one who thinks it's an aberration that there are so many programming languages?

Eh, it doesn't really matter. If someone wants to code in some esoteric language, let them and leave them be.

Most things are written in Python, C++, Java, Objective-C, or HTML these days anyway.

 

[raydpratt007]

Am I the only one who thinks it's an aberration that there are so many programming languages?

The number of programming languages is bewildering, yes, but they all arose to make something easier to do than was available at the time. Also, every language adds features so that one's familiarity with a language can be leveraged to do new or old tasks in better ways. People are stubborn and do not want to learn the syntax of a new language if they can stick with one they know. The problem is that we now have multitudes of programming languages that are living historical oddities rather than being the best languages to solve problems (COBOL. Fortran, etc.). Rust is the latest and greatest for replacing C, C++, and other low-level languages, but sure as rain the Rust language will be replaced by the next greatest and latest--and yet Rust will continue to live on and get new features because some core group of people will not want to change languages. I like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript because I do not have to program the computer to display individual pixels to create an on-screen image. However, the browser will eventually morph into something that can display more, perhaps real 3-D images, etc., but I will keep using the older languages that I have invested time in learning. The multitude of languages is not the problem, we are.

 

[PEnnn]

Am I the only one who thinks it's an aberration that there are so many programming languages?

It can be good, bad and very bad!

Good: New language might be more suited to deal with the latest technologies.

Bad: Many programmers have to keep learning new ones to stay employable.

Very bad: When clueless employers / HR departments advertise job openings and want 5 years experience in say CXYZ++ programming language....which was announced barely 2 months ago!!

Yep, I was once a programmer and had to deal with / explain the absurdity to the clueless crowd!!

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I thought Google was eventually rewriting Android in Rust. Too many languages to learn. I'm happy tinkering with C, C++, Python, Mathematica and Matlab. Still Rust looks interesting.

 

[human7]

I thought Google was eventually rewriting Android in Rust. Too many languages to learn. I'm happy tinkering with C, C++, Python, Mathematica and Matlab. Still Rust looks interesting.

While there are too many languages for any one person to know, there aren't too many languages to learn for practical use cases. Once you know the industry you will be working in, odds are you won't need anymore than 2 or 3 languages, give or take depending on industry or company. With a few exceptions (assembly, SQL, proprietary languages, esoteric languages like whitespace, and a couple of others), once you are fluent in one language, it's pretty easy to transition to the others.