Re:Why you should, actually, rewrite some of it in Rust
by vvanders on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @12:00PM
(#14753628)
+1 to everything said here.
It really is very straightforward to start inserting Rust into a C/C++ codebase. I did the Rust port of netcode.io[1] which started out by just calling C code for the portions that I didn't have working in Rust. Eventually the port was 100% Rust but I was really impressed with how seamless mixing C/Rust was.
Even now our unit tests run against the C code at a functional level so we know when the protocol diverges which lets us easily catch breaking changes from the reference C implementation.
Much like everything, don't apply an adage blindly and do a proper evaluation but I think if you're in the a space where memory or performance matters Rust is a very strong contender that plays well with existing ecosystems.
It really is very straightforward to start inserting Rust into a C/C++ codebase. I did the Rust port of netcode.io[1] which started out by just calling C code for the portions that I didn't have working in Rust. Eventually the port was 100% Rust but I was really impressed with how seamless mixing C/Rust was.
Even now our unit tests run against the C code at a functional level so we know when the protocol diverges which lets us easily catch breaking changes from the reference C implementation.
Much like everything, don't apply an adage blindly and do a proper evaluation but I think if you're in the a space where memory or performance matters Rust is a very strong contender that plays well with existing ecosystems.
[1] - https://github.com/networkprotocol/netcode.io