Rust is very hard to learn and time consuming too.
And there’s very few rust jobs out there.
So I wonder if investing my time in learning rust will eventually lead to a career in a world in which rust is commonplace.
Or is learning rust just a difficult to learn hobby?
Rather than mastering this or that language and try to predict the future, focus on solving business problems, adding value, implementing requirements in code, and good development practices.
If you want to learn one language that has a high chance of lasting throughout your career, learn SQL or C.
And Lisp. Any Lisp. Clojure, Racket, Fennel, Janet, CL, Elisp.
FTFY. Both will last our lifetimes.
I do see a lot of new startups using Rust and it’s becoming more common in server side environments. It’s probably worth learning.
Or if you prefer a more historical analogy it’s like a free mason saying is using one particular brand of construction materials good for his career. What would you say to him.
Don’t forget we software engineers are just modern day free masons.
Whether rust becomes a good choice or not is based directly on what you learned from using it and not just developing with it. A goog Career is based knowledge and or experience compounding. When you start with that in mind the language doesn’t matter as much as the learning. Language is just a tool at that point. Sure knowing how to use multiple tools is good. But that kind of differentiator will only get you so far.
Good luck!
Best way to learn Rust is going to be finding a way to get it into your current job. Write a small CLI tool in Rust, or spin up a small service in Rust. Make sure it's not on the critical path so that even if you're the only one who knows it, nothing horribly bad will happen. Ideally, see if you can get a coworker to learn it with you and contribute so multiple people know it. This helps engineering managers/directors get more comfortable with adopting a new language and tech. This might have to happen in your spare time initially, but hopefully if you're successful at it, you can start to use Rust at work and get the credibility you're looking for.
Rust and the electric vehicle are totally comparable and will follow the same adoption curve at about the same time. That much has already been decided. In about 2 years time the transition will be in obvious to everyone. This is a decision driven by industry, managers and $hit, not developers.
Electric cars offer a superior ride, no maintenance, no pollution and often drive themselves. And so does Rust, uniquely. Aware industry must be, or extinction threatens. That reality is 5 years out, and is part of "software" finally coming of age.
We'll leave the diapers, and the crap that software is full of, behind. It'll not be just Rust, but Rust uniquely. Meaning that this change reinforces Rust's moral leadership.
I personally would definitely want to see the shift towards Rust but theres no way around the fact it'll take time. When we have something similar to the lines of MISRA or AUTOSAR in Rust then it might be an option, but those kinds of endeavours will take a long time. But I definitely can see some usage for Rust already in many other domains!
The way I see it, there's an infinite amount of things you can learn, and you have to optimize for whatever gives the most bang for your buck. That buck being time spent.
Rust is very intriguing, but that alone wasn't enough for me to keep devoting time into learning and continuously brushing up on it. Spending time on fundamentals and languages and tools which I have a daily use for gave me a better return on investment.
I've spent a fair amount of time on Haskell and it's been worth it even though I haven't ever directly used it at work for anything significant. Rust at worst seems the same way.
The language is the material / tool used to solve the problem in question.
As we learn we know when to use X tool or language to solve Y problem.
