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Discussion on: Golang or Rust, that is the question.

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brianmcbride profile image
Brian McBride

Different use cases in my mind and the key difference is around garbage collection.

I wouldn't build anything that needs ultra-smooth performance in GoLang. Say, a game engine, for instance. You need to manually manage your garbage collection when you are trying to draw your frames.

This is the other aspect. Where do you want to go with your development career? Search jobs with each language and see what places have been hiring recently. You'll see where Rust and GoLang are used the most. For instance, if you like DevOps work, Go will be the choice for sure (with some Python). Do you want to work in IoT at the chip level, Rust is going to be a path there.

Now, if you are interested in building mobile apps, Netiher will do many favors. Same for RESTful or GraphQL APIs. Yes, they are both super fast and can build highly performant services. However, other languages with rich, battle-tested libraries will probably net a faster development with more tooling for testing and deployment.

Finally, GoLang vs Rust popularity is subjective. I have seen GoLang used in production in MANY places. I have witnessed Rust in production only once. But, I'm not omnipotent.

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nagrass profile image
Nathan Grass

Great advice for looking at the job postings. Golang is for sure here to stay within Devops roles. Rust has growing demand in key use cases. It still feels to me that Rust will be very niche for the long term, but in critical need.