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Why Rust is emerging as developers’ favourite programming language

Rust tops list of most admired programming languages

While programming languages like JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and Python remain the most commonly used languages among developers, some interesting trends have emerged over the last few years.

Stack Overflow’s 2023 Annual Developer Survey found that, although Rust is in 14th place in the list of most commonly used languages, it ranks number one as the “most admired” language, with more than 80% of developers who have used it saying they want to use it again in the next year.

Underlying this is data from the Popularity of Programming Language Index, which is created by analysing how often language tutorials are searched on Google. It found that Rust has grown the most in the last five years, at 2.1%.

So what is it about Rust that has developers coming back for more?

New and different

A relatively new language, Rust was developed as a personal project by a programmer working at Mozilla in 2006. Graydon Hoare was inspired to create it following a frustrating experience with a lift at his apartment block in Vancouver, of all things.

Aware that these sorts of issues often come down to how a program uses memory, he was inspired to write small, fast code without memory bugs. He named it Rust, after a group of fungi that are highly specialised plant pathogens. They are, he says, “over-engineered for survival.”

Rust 1.0, was released in 2015, and it has grown in popularity ever since. While the backstory makes for interesting reading, why Rust is accelerating in popularity is equally compelling.

AI driving adoption

The dramatic rise of AI is partly responsible. GitHub’s Octoverse report notes that,