Rust 2018 has now been released. This is the first major release since Rust 1.0 in 2015, and alongside new language features, it includes IDE support, updated libraries, new documentation, domain working groups, and a new website.

Rust has been designed to be a safe, fast and concurrent language without having a garbage collector. It is constructed so that problems are detected at compile time so that it can be used safely for systems programming. Rust was originally sponsored by Mozilla, and is intended for use in situations including embedding in other languages, writing programs with specific space and time requirements, and writing low-level code, like device drivers and operating systems.  

The new version of Rust will still support Rust 2015 compatible code, and in fact will default to that. There are breaking changes in this release, but these will be the only breaking changes for the next three years of development, and you will still be able to work around the breaking changes. 

One of the main changes to the actual language in the new version is support for async/await. Until now, Rust hasn't supported the concepts of async and await, but requests from developers and pressure from other languages that do support asynch have made the Rust developers add them.

The majority of changes, though, are to things like tooling, with the development team focusing on specific ways Rust is used and trying to make it more productive for those specific cases.

Alongside the core tools familiar from earlier versions - Cargo, Rustdoc, and Rustup, new tools have been added: Clippy, Rustfmt, and IDE support.

Rust's linter, clippy, is now available on stable Rust. Clippy is a collection of lints to catch common mistakes and improve your Rust code, and it is now considered to be at version 1.0, which carries the same lint stability guarantees as rustc. New lints may be added, and lints may be modified to add more functionality.

Rustfmt is a tool for formatting Rust code. Automatically formatting your code lets you save time and arguments by using the official Rust style. This release includes Rustfmt 1.0.

The work on IDE support is, according to the developers, one of the most requested tooling features for Rust. However, IDE support remains a work in progress, though you can work on Rust code in Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, Atom, Eclipse, and Sublime Text 3. The developers acknowledge that code completion is not up to scratch in the RLS-based editors, but say that if you mainly want support for types, documentation, and 'go to def', etc. then you should be happy.

More Information

Rust Website

Related Articles

Rust Survey Revelations

Rust 1.28 Improves Memory Use

Rust 1.26 Adds Existential Types

Rust 1.24 Adds Reformatter

Rust 1.23 Uses Less Memory

Rust 1.20 Adds Associated Contents

Rust 1.16

Updated Rust Improves Documentation

Rust 1.6 Released

Rust 1.3 Released

Rust Releases New Versions

Rust Hits Stable 1.0 - So What?

Rust 1.0 Alpha Released       

Rust Reaches 0.9

Rust 0.7 Released

Rust 0.4 Full Integration of Borrowed Pointers

To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.

Comments

Make a Comment or View Existing Comments Using Disqus

or email your comment to: comments@i-programmer.info