> However, in 2020, the premier system’s language is surely Rust.
Yesterday I was speaking with a friend who runs a small company doing contracted embedded programming (the embedded OS is often Linux but often not) and he'd never even heard of Rust. Maybe it's a little lower level than what's meant by "systems" here but still, the article's statement is just delusional.
The largest vocal community today for a systems language (meaning down to the OS level with strong determinism guarantees, not the redefinition to make Go a systems language meaning server systems) is definitely Rust. But in practice, no one is using it because their systems predate it, don't have compilers for it, or they simply can't use it due to their problem domain (it has an insufficient history, they can't contract support with the compiler team for it, or whatever).
I can go to Green Hills and get a contract that guarantees their compiler will be available and supported for my target platform for the next 10+ years. Rust is still a moving target with a single implementation, and no (present) way to get the guarantees needed for the embedded domains I've been involved in. I'd like to see Rust experimented with there, but it won't be the "go to" language for quite some time.
> Rust is still a moving target with a single implementation, and no (present) way to get the guarantees needed for the embedded domains I've been involved in.
Absolutely. I've said it before, I will say it again, Rust will not be taken seriously as a systems language until it is specified. As I understand it years ago I was laughed at for this, but it is underway. I am grateful for this.
I forgot to preface my statements with I Love Rust, or, moreso, I actually love OCaml, and I love OCaml inspired languages, and I would love to write an OS in it (save ReactOS).
That being said, the desire to label it as the "premier systems language" (and no fault of the author, many before have tried to say this) is entirely not grounded in any sort of reality.
> However, in 2020, the premier system’s language is surely Rust.
Yesterday I was speaking with a friend who runs a small company doing contracted embedded programming (the embedded OS is often Linux but often not) and he'd never even heard of Rust. Maybe it's a little lower level than what's meant by "systems" here but still, the article's statement is just delusional.