Rust is a new programming language that is growing rapidly. Rust's goal is to support a high-level coding style while offering performance comparable to C and C++ as well as minimal runtime requirements -- it does not require a runtime or garbage collector, and you can even choose to forego the standard library. At the same time, Rust offers strong support for parallel programming, including guaranteed freedom from data-races (something that GC’d languages like Java or Go do not provide).

Rust’s slim runtime requirements make it an ideal choice for integrating into other languages and projects. Anywhere that you could integrate a C or C++ library, you can choose to use Rust instead. Mozilla, for example, has rewritten a portion of the Firefox web browser in Rust -- while keeping the rest in C++. There are also projects for writing native extensions to Python, Ruby, and Node in Rust, as well as a recent effort to have the Rust compiler generate WebAssembly.

This talk will cover some of the highlights of Rust's design, and show how Rust's type system not only supports different parallel styles but also encourages users to write code that is amenable to parallelization. I'll also talk a bit about some of the experiences of using Rust in production, as well as how to integrate Rust into existing projects written in different languages.