10 years of Rust: code, community, industry standards
We are very close to the 10-year anniversary of Rust 1.0's release, and that was some kind of a journey. While Rust, as a project, is actually a bit older, it dates back to 2006, when Graydon Hoare started working on it, the last ten years since the stable 1.0 release have transformed this project from an experimental Mozilla project to a valuable industry-proven tool.
Rust origins
If you are interested in Rust, you have probably already heard the story about Graydon Hoare being stuck in the malfunctioning elevator. The event that was a primer to the Rust project and a possible solution for Mr Hoare to get rid of his frustrations with software crashes caused by memory errors.
Anyone working with C or C++ who moved into Rust knows the pain too well. Although the Rust ownership model can bring some pain at the beginning of the journey, it pays off in the end.
The Rust programming language was apparently named after a resilient fungi type that thrives even in harsh conditions, "over-engineered for survival," according to Hoare. After gaining official sponsorship in 2009, when it eventually caught Mozilla's attention, it began its journey to be a language with C/C++ performance but without memory safety nightmares.
Rust language anniversary
Let's celebrate the 1.0 milestone reached on May 15, 2015. Why is celebrating this release important? When version 1.0 was announced 10 years ago, the Rust team promised something significant, which holds true to this day: that the Rust compiler would be kept stable and would not be broken with the upcoming releases. I believe this was crucial for the adoption of the language and was a major selling point for companies and developers across the world.
In addition, during the last 10 years, we have witnessed enormous growth in the community (without major dramas like in other very good languages and platforms ;) ). In 2021, the Rust Foundation formalized taking care of Rust governance previously delivered by Mozilla.
Within that time, we could witness wide adoption of the language by major players like Google and Amazon and some work made by Linux developers on the kernel side where traditionally, C language was the king.
Last but not least, the momentum continues with more books and conferences. Events like the Rustikon, a conference for Rust developers, happening in Warsaw this year, are a clear sign that not only the biggest players like Google or Amazon are interested in investing in this language.
Key milestones of Rust evolution
- 2015: The first stable release with a commitment to stability
- 2016: Ecosystem growth with Cargo, Rustup, and early crates
- 2018: The Edition system was introduced, bringing ergonomic improvements
- 2020: Async/await stabilization - a game-changer for networked applications
- 2021-2023: Major industry adoption (Microsoft, AWS, Google, and more)
- 2023-2024: The push for memory safety gains government endorsement
- 2025: Rust 1.85.0 brings the new 2024 edition with major improvements
The 2024 edition is one of the largest editions created so far with many features and improvements to the language. As an example, one of the best and mentioned everywhere in the recent days are async closures where you can write async || blocks. Of course similar to other previous releases, this one brings other goodies for developers, new attribute macros and some collection improvements.
Rust programming language ecosystem
Rust's success isn't just about language features - it's about the ecosystem that has grown around it:
- Cargo: Perhaps the best package manager in any programming language
- Rustfmt & Clippy: Code formatting and linting tools that set the standard
- Rust Analyzer: World-class IDE support that makes coding a joy
- crates.io: Over 170TB of crates served roughly 1.8 billion requests in 2020 alone
Where Rust shines today
After a decade of maturation, certain domains have emerged where Rust particularly excels:
- Systems Programming: OS kernels, drivers, and embedded systems
- WebAssembly: Bringing native performance to the browser
- Network Services: High-performance, reliable servers and APIs
- Cross-platform Applications: Write once, deploy everywhere
- Security-critical Infrastructure: When failure isn't an option
And I have a feeling that it's just the beginning. Rust is becoming a more general-purpose programming language, for example, with new web frameworks popping up periodically.
Thinking of using Rust to build performance-critical backend systems? Read "Why Rust is the Best Choice for Modern Software Development"
The Graydon Factor: not the Rust he wanted
What is interesting is the fact that Rust's creator, Graydon Hoare, stepped away from the project in 2013 and apparently wasn't happy about how Rust evolved differently from his initial vision. In his blog, he wrote:
"I would have traded performance and expressivity away for simplicity — both end-user cognitive load and implementation simplicity in the compiler — and by doing so I would have taken the language in a direction broadly opposed to where a lot of people wanted it to go."
Rust programming language prioritized performance, zero-cost abstractions, and expressivity - choices that have proven critical to its success. As one Reddit user noted: "His Rust wouldn't have been better, it would have been different... I really like today's Rust."
It's not all sunshine and ferris crabs
Rust, of course, isn't perfect. Its learning curve remains steep, especially things like the borrow checker or lifetimes can feel like an unforgiving teacher. You need to do a lot of fighting against the borrow checker, especially at the beginning of your Rust journey.
Some are still complaining: "Even though the safe mode is useful most of the time, the error messages can be confusing or distracting. As a result, development can be more time-consuming compared to programming in a familiar language, like Python."
And while Rust's ecosystem has grown impressively, it still lacks the breadth of libraries/frameworks found in more established languages (although this is a matter of time, I believe).
Looking forward into the next decade
What might the next ten years hold for Rust? Several trends seem likely:
- Better GUI Development: Frameworks like Dioxus, Slint, and Iced maturing
- AI & Data Science Adoption: Projects like Polars gaining traction
- Embedded Everywhere: More microcontrollers and bare-metal programming
- Conquering New Industries: Automotive, aerospace, and finance sectors
The impact beyond code
One of the most interesting facts about Rust's existence is that Rust's influence extends beyond just the projects built with it. The language has:
- Proven Memory Safety Without GC Is Possible: Influencing design of other languages
- Raised the Bar for Developer Experience: Making even C++ improve its tooling
- Changed How We Think About Concurrency: Making thread safety a compile-time concern
- Pushed Security to the Forefront: The US government now recommends memory-safe languages
The Rust community factor
That can be stressed enough, and probably at the same time, everyone working with Rust quickly notices how large and friendly the Rust community is. Seven consecutive years as "Most Loved Language" in Stack Overflow surveys doesn't happen by accident.
Rust's community is legendary for being helpful, inclusive, and passionate. The language may have started as one person's project, but it has thrived since then.
In 2025, Rust marks its 10th anniversary—a milestone worth celebrating together! This is the perfect time to connect with the growing Rust community, dive into the latest advancements, and be part of the excitement. Community events are happening worldwide, and Rustikon is one of them! Expect a developer-friendly atmosphere, ~15 expert talks and workshops.
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MyRustStory
The #MyRustStory series marks Rust’s 10th anniversary by sharing developer experiences. It highlights how Rust has affected projects, its strong typing, memory safety, and new features like async/await. Contributors describe their paths from doubt to using Rust for its tools, performance, and helpful community. The series shows Rust’s growth, open development, and practical uses.
Read their Rust Story:
Conclusion
At this point, after 10 years since the release 1.0, we can clearly see that Rust is no longer a personal project for someone angry at the elevator situation ;) The history of the language is fascinating, but what's even more interesting, is how big will it grow in the near future and what areas will it shine at except for systems development. What makes Rust special isn't just its technical merits, it's the vision of a world where performance doesn't require sacrificing safety, where systems programming can be accessible and enjoyable, and where the community can work together to bring something good to the IT world.
Cannot wait to see what another decade of Rust will bring - more crabs, more compile-time guarantees, and more developers discovering the joy of writing code that simply works.