Microsoft Taps Rust as Top-Tier Language for Windows Development

Microsoft has officially recognized Rust as one of its top-tier internal languages, alongside C++, C#, and TypeScript. According to Victor Ciura, Microsoft's principal engineer for the Rust tooling team, this move means that Rust will be fully supported across the entire software development lifecycle.

Rust is already used in over 100 Microsoft project repositories, including the Oxidizer set of crates, which have been used to build and refine the core services of Microsoft 365. The company has also integrated Rust with its Visual C++ (MSVC) platform for compiling Windows binaries.

While this integration has made it easier to work with Rust on Windows, there are still challenges ahead. Ciura noted that Microsoft engineers will need to grapple with the 'unsafe' territory of mixing Rust and C++ code, which can lead to memory errors.