‘RUST’ vs ‘GO’: The Debate of two Modern Programming Languages

In this technological advancement era, things have been changing very rapidly. And this advancement has been done with the help of programming languages that have emerged as an option for enterprise development. The two of them are: ‘Go’, created by Google, and ‘Rust’ created by Mozilla.

Now, if you ‘Go’ on looking for the top emerging programming languages in the past decade, you will surely find these names. We find the application of these languages in various strata of technological paradigm.

So, if we already have a pool of languages, then why do we need to ‘Go’ for modern languages such as ‘Go’ and ‘Rust’. Let's first see the reason behind the emergence of ‘Rust’ and ‘Go’.

The Reason for our Discussion

As we have said that we have stepped into modern computing, and this era requires high-performance computing devices. While ‘Go’ was made publicly available in 2009 by Google, on the other hand, ‘Rust’ was made publicly available in 2010. Since then, the dilemma has continued for the developers as to which language should be preferred to develop the parallel-computing applications.

We need to provide a secure solution for the business and performance-related issues of modern-day computing, and firms across the globe are aggregating computing power to deliver a solution for them. So, from here comes the role of these modern-day languages, precisely the two we are going to discuss in detail.

The ‘Go’ programming language

‘Go’ is an abbreviated form of "Golang," and as we have discussed that this language is most widely used by the entrepreneurs and businesses that require high efficiency. The ‘Go’ language is an easy to learn, general-purpose programming language, but it does not use class inheritance which is mostly used by object-oriented programming languages. It reduces the tedious work on the developer's part by reducing the lines of code and the effort required in a lot of coding.

Now, that was a brief about the ‘Go’ programming language, let's have a brief outlook of:

The ‘Rust’ programming language

‘Rust’ is another modern multi-paradigm programming language; it was established later than the ‘Go’ programming language. It has acquired an exponential growth since its inception. This language is similar to C++ in terms of syntax, but it has an advantage as it provides memory safety without using garbage collection.

The ‘Rust’, over the period, is gaining its user base and has been termed as the "most loved programming language" in the Stack Overflow's developer survey since 2016.

So, that was an introduction of both the languages, now let's compare ‘Rust’ and ‘Go’ based on the following factors;

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‘RUST’ vs. ‘GO’: Comparison

The Performance Factor

It is this parameter where ‘Rust’ has the upper hand when compared with ‘Go’. Here, the programs of ‘Rust’ run at the similar speed of C++ and C. But since the inception of both of these languages, high-performance was the common motive behind their development.

While we can say that ‘Rust’ is much better in terms of performance than ‘Go’, but the one criterion where ‘Rust’ lags is the compilation speed. But as people don't bother about the compilation time, so ‘Rust’ is the ultimate way to ‘Go’ for.

Which one has better Memory Management?

When it comes to programming languages, memory management is an important part. It plays a crucial role during the compilation and runs the time of the program. Here, at the compile time, memory management by ‘Rust’ is done through the zero-cost abstractions. And if the programs written in ‘Rust’ are not safe, then it won't be easy for any code to compile and then proceed further to the running stage.

Now, talking about ‘Go’, it is also memory safe. The difference is, the memory management in the ‘Go’ is handled at the runtime. This means that the allocation of memory or the release of memory would be handled automatically during runtime without having developer’s interference.

Who wins in terms of Development Speed?

At this point, ‘Go’ weighs more in terms of Development Speed. Now, when we say of development speed, it is the more important factor than the program speed. An example of this can be seen as the Python language, Python is not one of the fastest languages to run, but it is the fastest language in which a developer can write code for software.

On the other hand, ‘Go’ also come with a similar feature, but as ‘Rust’ comprises more language features, it takes time to master ‘Rust’. So, if you want a faster development, than you should prefer ‘Go’.

Comparison in terms of Library Support

The Library support factor is common when it comes to a comparison between two programming languages. Lesser library support means a few options to fulfill the developer's need. But here, both of the languages, whether ‘Rust’ or ‘Go’, have a lot of libraries.

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‘Rust’ vs. ‘Go’: Better Concurrency

In this technological era, the languages that are not compatible with meeting the needs and demands of the modern developers are the ones left behind. Now, as Golang has an advantage that concurrency was built in its syntax since its inception, while it was not in the case of ‘Rust’. ‘Rust’, on the other hand, has gained a native syntax in the form of; “async/.await”. But then also ‘Rust’ lacks in the concurrency experience of the developer.

Comparing in terms of Security

‘Rust’ has a little inclination towards delivering security features and preventing security flaws. Whereas ‘Go’ can reduce the complexities in the program and follows the agile methodology. Now, the developers have to switch between the system programming that many developers find difficult to.

Wrap Up

There are many critical factors in choosing a programming language. As we have discussed above, these are several parameters where ‘Rust’ is better than ‘Go’ and vice-versa. You can choose between these languages as per your requirement and business needs, say if you want to write a faster code when performance is not a question, and you require simplicity and readability, in this case, you should choose ‘Go’ over ‘Rust’. Speed is another factor where ‘Go’ outperforms ‘Rust’. The advent of both languages has been at the same point in time, but the growth witnessed by ‘Go’ is unmatched to what ‘Rust’ has been seen by ‘Rust’.

So, seeing the current scenario, we can say that ‘Go’ is the winner of the competition between ‘Go’ and ‘Rust’, that image of this competition may change in the coming future. Now, if you have made your mind to ‘Go’ after one of these languages, and want to choose a Golang development company to build websites and applications in ‘Go’ language, or you want to hire Golang or ‘Rust’ developers to fulfill your aspirations, we have the solution for your problems. We at Biz4Group, are always there to fulfill your business needs with our experienced developers.