Linus Torvalds weighs in on Rust language in the Linux kernel
1 min read
Mar 26, 2021
Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman have shared their thoughts with ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols about the possibility of new Linux kernel code being written in Rust—a high performance but memory-safe language sponsored by the Mozilla project.
As of now, the Linux kernel is written in the C programming language—essentially, the same language used to write kernels for Unix and Unix-like operating systems since the 1970s. The great thing about C is that it's not assembly language—it's considerably easier to read and write, and it's generally much closer to directly portable between hardware architectures. However, C still opens you up to nearly the entire range of catastrophic errors possible in assembly.
