What is Rust?

Rust is a compiled, statically-typed systems programming language originally created by Graydon Hoare and later sponsored by Mozilla Research. Its headline feature is memory safety without a garbage collector: instead of cleaning up unused memory while your program runs, Rust's compiler enforces a strict set of ownership rules at compile time, catching entire categories of bugs — like using memory after it's been freed — before the program ever executes.

Rust is also a compiled language: the rustc compiler translates your source code directly into native machine code ahead of time, using the same LLVM backend that powers many C and C++ compilers. There's no interpreter reading your code line by line and no virtual machine running underneath it — just a standalone binary that runs on its own, which is a big part of why Rust programs tend to start instantly and run about as fast as C or C++.

Rust achieves memory ____ at compile time, without needing a garbage collector, through its ownership system.

Rust is also statically typed, meaning every value's type is known and checked at compile time rather than discovered while the program runs. Combined with what the community calls zero-cost abstractions — high-level, convenient features that compile down to code just as fast as the equivalent hand-written low-level version — Rust lets you write expressive code without sacrificing the raw performance systems programmers care about.

What does it mean that Rust has 'zero-cost abstractions'?

Rust has topped Stack Overflow's 'most loved programming language' survey for years running, but it's also known for a real learning curve: its ownership and borrow-checking rules feel unusual at first, even to experienced programmers coming from other languages. The payoff most people report is that once code compiles, it tends to just work — many bugs that would surface as crashes in other languages are caught by the compiler instead.

Rust manages memory using a garbage collector that runs in the background while the program executes, similar to Java.