[pron]

I don't think that a language that was meant to compete with C++ and in 10+ years hasn't captured 10% of C++'s (already diminished) market share could be said to have become "kind of the default" for anything (and certainly not when that requires generalising from n≅1).

[pjmlp]

It has for Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, Google and the Linux kernel.

It remains to be seen which big name will make Zig unavoidable.

[pron]

> It has for Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, Google and the Linux kernel.

I don't think so. I don't know about Adobe, but it's not a meaningful statement for the rest. Those companies default to writing safe code in languages other than Rust, and the Linux kernel defaults to unsafe code in C. BTW, languages favoured by those projects/companies do not reliably represent industry-wide preferences, let alone defaults. You could certainly say that of the two languages accepted so far in the Linux kernel, the only safe one is Rust, but there's hardly any "default" there.

> It remains to be seen which big name will make Zig unavoidable.

I have no idea whether or not Zig will ever be successful, but at this point it's pretty clear that Rust's success has been less than modest at best.

[pjmlp]

It is a clear mandate on those companies that whatever used to be C or C++, should be written in Rust for green field development.

Whatever could be done in programming languages with automatic memory management was already being done.

Anyone deploying serverless code into Amazon instances is running of top of Firecracker, my phone has Rust code running on it, and whatever Windows 11 draws something into the screen, it goes through Rust rewrite of the GDI regions logic, all the Azure networking traffic going through Azure Boost cards does so via Rust firmware.

Adobe is the sponsor for the Hylo programming language, and key figures in the C++ community, are doing Rust talks nowadays.

"Adobe’s memory safety roadmap: Securing creativity by design"

https://blog.adobe.com/security/adobes-memory-safety-roadmap...

Any hobby language author would like to have 1% of the said modest Rust's success, I really don't get the continuous downplay of such achievement.

[pron]

> It is a clear mandate on those companies that whatever used to be C or C++, should be written in Rust for green field development. Whatever could be done in programming languages with automatic memory management was already being done.

I don't know how true either of these statements is or to what extent the mandate is enforced (at my company we also have language mandates, but what they mean is that to use a different language all you need is an explanation and a manager to sign off), but I'll ask acquaintances in those companies (Except Adobe; don't know anyone there. Although the link you provided doesn't say Rust; it says "Rust or Swift". It also commits only to "exploring ways to reduce the use of new C and C++ code in safety critical parts of our products to a fraction of current levels").

What I do know is that the rate at which Rust is adopted, is significantly lower than the rate at which C++, Java, C#, Python, TS, and even Go were adopted, even in those companies.

Now, there's no doubt that Rust has some real adoption, and much more than just hobby languages. Its rate of adoption is significantly higher than that of Haskell, or Clojure, or Elixir were (but lower than that of Ruby or PHP). That is without a doubt a great accomplishment, but not what you'd expect from a language that wishes to become the successor to C++ (and doesn't suffer from lack of hype despite its advanced age). Languages that offer a significant competitive advantage, or even the perception of one, spread at a faster pace, certainly those that eventually end up in the top 5.

I also think there's little doubt that the Rust "base" is more enthusiastic than that of any language I remember except maybe that of Haskell's resurgence some years back (and maybe Ruby), and that enthusiasm may make up for what they lack in numbers, but at some point you need the numbers. A middle-aged language can only claim to be the insurgent for so long.

[pron]

P.S.

I spoke with someone at AWS, and he says that there is an investment in using Rust for low-level code, but there is no company-wide mandate, and projects are free to pick C or C++.

[bluecalm]

>>It is a clear mandate on those companies that whatever used to be C or C++, should be written in Rust for green field development. >>Any hobby language author would like to have 1% of the said modest Rust's success, I really don't get the continuous downplay of such achievement.

This is a political achievement, not technical one. People are bitter about it as it doesn't feel organic and feel pushed onto them.

[dwattttt]

There is technical achievement in:

> Anyone deploying serverless code into Amazon instances is running of top of Firecracker, my phone has Rust code running on it, and whatever Windows 11 draws something into the screen, it goes through Rust rewrite of the GDI regions logic, all the Azure networking traffic going through Azure Boost cards does so via Rust firmware.

Ignoring it doesn't make those achievements political rather than technical.

[bluecalm]

I was referring to mandate to use it at big companies. This is a political achievement. Teams/contributors making their own choice and then shipping good software counts as technical one but that wasn't the main point of the post I replied to.

[kennykartman]

I wonder what you consider a successful language.

Rust appeared in 2012. Zig in 2016. I consider them both two successful programming languages, but given they are only 4 years apart, it's easy to compare Zig today with 4-years-back Rust and see they are very far apart, in term of maturity, progress, community size and adoption.

Rust is a very successful language so far, but expecting that in 10y it can overthrow C++ is silly. Codebases add up more than they are replaced.

[surajrmal]

While certain teams within Google are using rust by default, I'm not sure rust is anywhere close in scale for new lines of code committed per week to c++.

[paavohtl]

For Android specifically, by Q3 of last year more new lines of Rust were being added per week than new lines of C++: https://security.googleblog.com/2025/11/rust-in-android-move...

[surajrmal]

Sure and android is a small part of Google. Everyone in ads, search, cloud are still predominantly c++ (or something higher level like Java). Rust is gaining momentum but overall it's still small.

[anal_reactor]

The problem is that the number of browser engines is n=2.

[drnick1]

Interestingly, Ladybird, which aims at being the n = 3, is also written in C++.

[drannex]

Ladybird is in the process of switching over to Swift, and has been for a little over a year now.

Not linking to the pedophilic nazi-site, and as Nitter is dead-ish, here is the full-text announcement archived on tildes: https://tildes.net/~comp/1j7m/ladybird_chooses_swift_as_its_...