[jernfrost]

I love C, but I think we really have to stop building all kinds of shared libraries in C. Important code which needs to be secure and solid can't be built on C anymore, it puts everybody at risk. Just look at the disaster OpenSSL has been.

I think Rust would be create for building common crypto infrastructure and things such as crypto currency. It seems risky to me to build something like Bitcoin with C++ where millions can easily be at stake if the system doesn't work.

I am an application programmer so I might not be the primary target, but I started programming with Swift and although it isn't the same as Rust it has some similarities. A lot stricter language than C++, C, Lua, Python and Objective-C which have have used most in the past. So many bugs are caught at compile time. I used to be skeptical towards static typing, primarily because languages like C++ and Java made types so awful to work with. But with the newer OOP languages with more functional inspiration, it is getting easier to deal with strict typing.

You don't have to chose between productivity and safety so much anymore.

[pcwalton]

> You don't have to chose between productivity and safety so much anymore.

Exactly. If I had to sum up Rust's philosophy in one sentence, this would basically be it. (Add "and performance" after "safety" too.) :)

[infogulch]

Safe. Productive. Fast.

Choose any three.

(Taking a hint from SQLite.)

[technion]

I'll raise one set of shared libraries in particular: graphics parsers. Whether you're writing in PHP or Ruby or whatever, odds are you'll end up manipulating graphics in some C library.

Imagemagick has a long history of issues (although I appreciate the most recent, major issue could have been written into any language). Mozilla only just audited libjpeg-turbo and found a series of issues, and a quick Google will point to most of the options being terrible.

I'm sure someone will (if not already) write a decent Rust alternative - but what everyone is missing at the moment is bindings for their favourite high level language with comparable APIs to their existing tools.

[ithinkso]

You are missing one very important point: bindings. You can bind to C from basically every other language, which is quite important for shared libraries.

[yawaramin]

You can expose Rust code as 'C' libraries and bind to them.