1. Rust's compile-time checks, run-time checks and fuzzing tools make it much easier to write secure code. Since decoders are a notorious source of bad security bugs, this is a big plus in my book.
2. Rust's dependency management makes it rather pleasant to rely on 3rd-party libraries. The combination of an immutable package repository and semver makes it easy to trust that things won't break. And in my experience, the number of 3rd-party libraries is relatively small compared to more popular languages, but the quality tends to be fairly high (especially relative to npm).
3. The tooling is surprisingly nice for a young language. cargo has solid defaults, Visual Studio Code provides auto-completion and tool tips, and there are good libraries for basic logging, argument parsing, etc.
4. Rust makes it relatively easy to write fast code, as long as you use references and slices when appropriate.
Downsides include the learning curve (about a week or two for a C++ programmer to start feeling semi-comfortable), and slower compile times for large modules or ones using lots of parameterized types. My coworkers will write Rust, but they tend to say things like, "Rust is intense."
For me, the biggest advantages over C/C++ were:
1. Rust's compile-time checks, run-time checks and fuzzing tools make it much easier to write secure code. Since decoders are a notorious source of bad security bugs, this is a big plus in my book.
2. Rust's dependency management makes it rather pleasant to rely on 3rd-party libraries. The combination of an immutable package repository and semver makes it easy to trust that things won't break. And in my experience, the number of 3rd-party libraries is relatively small compared to more popular languages, but the quality tends to be fairly high (especially relative to npm).
3. The tooling is surprisingly nice for a young language. cargo has solid defaults, Visual Studio Code provides auto-completion and tool tips, and there are good libraries for basic logging, argument parsing, etc.
4. Rust makes it relatively easy to write fast code, as long as you use references and slices when appropriate.
Downsides include the learning curve (about a week or two for a C++ programmer to start feeling semi-comfortable), and slower compile times for large modules or ones using lots of parameterized types. My coworkers will write Rust, but they tend to say things like, "Rust is intense."