[ad_1]
Google is now supporting third-party Rust libraries from C++ in the Chromium project.
Dana Jansens, writing on the Google Security blog, writes that to start, the team is adding a production Rust toolchain to its build systems. Rust code will appear in the Chrome binary within the following year.
It’s a big deal for Google to add Rust libraries to Chromium. It follows deep investments by Microsoft and Amazon Web Services into Rust programming. A note that Jansens makes clear: Google is not necessarily supporting Rust itself, but third-party Rust libraries.
Playing it safe comes through in the tone of Jansen’s post. They are starting “slow” and will be selective about third-party libraries they will consider.
Mozilla originally developed Rust, a typesafe language. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services have invested in Rust. What this says about Mozilla is, in some respects, pretty straightforward. Rust is a success. But otherwise, there’s a certain degree of uncertainty about Firefox, with its dwindling market share.
Google is adopting Rust libraries for two significant reasons. The move to accept Rust libraries is expected to help speed development and improve security in Chromium. In terms of growth, Jansens cites less code to write, fewer design docs, and fewer security reviews. For protection: more specifically, it’s the opportunity to increase the number of lines of code without memory safety bugs and at the same time decrease the code’s bug density.
Some will remain skeptical of the shift due to, for example, the introduction of new bugs. Lolinder writes on Hacker News:
“Rewriting in Rust is not necessarily a good idea for any given project, and Google is almost certainly not going to be proactively rewriting large amounts of Chrome in Rust any more than Mozilla is.
The reason is that bugs exist primarily in new code, not code that has been untouched for a long time. While you may solve some latent memory issues by rewriting in Rust, you…
..
[ad_2]
