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‎_posts/2018-03-08-roadmap.md

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---
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layout: post
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title: "Rust's 2018 roadmap"
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author: "Aaron Turon"
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---
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# Rust’s 2018 roadmap
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Each year the Rust community [comes together][roadmap-process] to set out a
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roadmap. This year, in addition to the [survey], we put out
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a [call for blog posts][blog-2018] in December, which resulted
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in [100 blog posts][read-rust] written over the span of a few weeks. The end
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result is the recently-merged [2018 roadmap RFC][rfc].
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[roadmap-process]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1728
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[survey]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/09/05/Rust-2017-Survey-Results.html
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[blog-2018]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2018/01/03/new-years-rust-a-call-for-community-blogposts.html
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[read-rust]: https://readrust.net/rust-2018/
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[rfc]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/2314
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## Entering the Rust 2018 epoch
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**This year, we will deliver _Rust 2018_, marking the first new era in Rust programming since 1.0**.
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We will continue to publish releases every six weeks as usual. But we will
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designate a release in the latter third of the year (Rust 1.29 - 1.31) as the
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beginning of the Rust 2018 epoch. This “epoch release” will be the culmination
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of feature stabilization throughout the year, and will ship with polished
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documentation, tooling, and libraries that tie in to those features.
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The idea of “epochs” is to signify major steps in Rust’s evolution, where a
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collection of new features or idioms, taken as a whole, changes the experience
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of using Rust. They’re a chance, every few years, to take stock of the work
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we’ve delivered in six-week increments. To tell a bigger story about where Rust
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is going. And to ship the whole stack as a polished product.
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We expect that epochs will have a core theme or focus. Thinking of 1.0 as the
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start of the 2015 era, we have:
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- Rust 2015: [stability](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/09/15/Rust-1.0.html)
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- Rust 2018: productivity
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### Compatibility across epochs
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**TL;DR: Rust will continue its stability guarantee
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of [hassle-free updates to new versions][stability]**.
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[stability]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2014/10/30/Stability.html
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Epochs will have a meaning for the compiler. You will be able to write:
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```toml
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epoch = "2018"
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```
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in your Cargo.toml to _opt in_ to the new epoch for your crate. Doing so may
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introduce new keywords or otherwise require adjustments to code. However:
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- You can use _old_ epochs indefinitely on _new_ compilers; **epochs are
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opt-in**.
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- Epochs are set on a _per-crate_ basis and can be mixed and matched; **you
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can be on a different epoch from your dependencies**.
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- Warning-free code in one epoch must compile, and have the same behavior, on
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the next.
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- Epoch-related warnings, e.g. that an identifier will become a keyword in the
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next epoch, must be easily fixable via an automated migration tool
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(rustfix). **Only a small minority of crates should require** **_any_**
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**manual work to opt in to a new** epoch, and that manual work must be
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minimal.
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In other words, the progression of new compiler versions is independent from
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epoch; you can migrate at your leisure, and don’t have to worry about ecosystem
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compatibility; and epoch migration is normally trivial.
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## What will be in Rust 2018?
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The roadmap doesn’t say _for certain_ what will ship in Rust 2018, but we have a
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pretty good idea, and we’ll cover the major suspects below.
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### Documentation improvements
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Part of the goal with the Rust 2018 release is to provide high quality
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documentation for the full set of new and improved features and the idioms they
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give rise to. [The Rust Programming Language book][trpl] has been completely
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re-written over the last 18 months, and will be updated throughout the year as
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features reach the stable compiler. [Rust By Example] will likewise undergo a
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revamp this year. And there are numerous third party books, like [Programming
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Rust], reaching print as well.
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[trpl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/book/second-edition/
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[Programming Rust]: https://www.google.com/search?q=programming+rust&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-ab
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[Rust By Example]: https://rustbyexample.com/
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**Language improvements**
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The most prominent language work in the pipeline stems from [2017’s ergonomics
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initiative]. Almost all of the accepted RFCs from the initiative are available
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on nightly today, and will be polished and stabilized over the next several
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months. Among these productivity improvements are a few “headliners” that will
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form the backbone of the release:
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[2017’s ergonomics initiative]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/03/02/lang-ergonomics.html
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- **Ownership system improvements**, including making borrowing more flexible
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via “non-lexical lifetimes”, improved pattern matching integration, and
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more.
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- **Trait system improvements**, including the long-awaited impl Trait syntax
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for dealing with types abstractly.
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- **Module system improvements**, focused on increasingly clarity and reducing
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complexity.
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- **Generators/async/await:** work is rapidly progressing on first-class async
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programming support.
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In addition, we anticipate a few more major features to stabilize prior to the
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epoch release, including **SIMD**, **custom allocators**, and **macros 2.0**.
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### Compiler improvements
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As of [Rust 1.24](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2018/02/15/Rust-1.24.html),
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incremental recompilation is available and enabled by default on the stable
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compiler. This feature already makes rebuilds significantly faster than fresh
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builds, but over the course of the year we expect continued improvements for
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_both_ fresh and re-builds. Compiler performance should not be an obstacle to
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productivity in Rust 2018.
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### Tooling improvements
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Rust 2018 will see high quality 1.0 releases of the RLS (underlying much of our
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IDE integration story) and rustfmt (a standard formatting tool for Rust
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code). We will continue to improve Cargo by stabilizing custom registries,
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public dependencies, and a revised profile system. We’re also expecting further
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work on [Cargo build system integration], [Xargo integration], and [custom test
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frameworks], though it’s unclear as yet which of these will be complete prior to
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the epoch release.
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[Cargo build system integration]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/2136
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[Xargo integration]: https://github.com/japaric/xargo
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[custom test frameworks]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/2318
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## Library improvements
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Building on [our work from last year][blitz], we will publish a 1.0 version of
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the [Rust API guidelines book], continue pushing important libraries to 1.0
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status, improve discoverability through a revamped cookbook effort, and make
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heavy investments in libraries in specific domains—as we’ll see below.
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[blitz]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/05/05/libz-blitz.html
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[Rust API guidelines book]: https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/api-guidelines
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**Web site improvements**
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As part of Rust 2018, we will completely overhaul the Rust web site, making it
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useful for CTOs and engineers alike. It should be far easier to find information
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to help evaluate Rust for your use case, and to stay up to date with the latest
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tooling and ecosystem improvements.
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## Four target domains
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Part of our goal with Rust 2018 is to demonstrate Rust’s productivity in
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specific domains of use. We’ve selected four such domains to invest in and
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highlight this year:
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- **Network services**. Rust’s reliability and low footprint make it an
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excellent match for network services and infrastructure, especially at high
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scale.
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- **CLI apps**. Rust’s portability, reliability, ergonomics, and ability to
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produce static binaries come together to great effect for writing CLI apps.
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- **WebAssembly**. The “wasm” web standard allows shipping native-like binaries
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to all major browsers, but GC support is still years away. Rust
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is [extremely well positioned](https://mgattozzi.com/rust-wasm) to target this
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domain, and provides a reasonable on-ramp for programmers coming from JS.
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- **Embedded devices**. Rust has the potential to make programming
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resource-constrained devices much more productive—and fun! We want embedded
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programming to reach first-class status this year.
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Each of these domains has a dedicated working group for the year. These WGs will
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work in a cross-cutting fashion, interfacing with language, tooling, library,
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and documentation work.
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## Better serving intermediate Rustaceans
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One of the strongest messages we’ve heard from production users, and [the 2017
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survey], is that people need more resources to take them from understanding
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Rust’s concepts to knowing how to use them _effectively_. The roadmap does not
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stipulate exactly what these resources should look like
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— [probably there should be several kinds][intermediate] — but commits us as a
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community to putting significant work into this space, and ending the year with
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some solid new material.
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[the 2017 survey]: https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/09/05/Rust-2017-Survey-Results.html
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[intermediate]: https://quietmisdreavus.net/code/2018/01/10/not-a-layer-cake-analogy/
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## Community
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**Connect and empower Rust's global community**. We will pursue
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internationalization (specifically: translation) as a first-class concern, and
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proactively work to build ties between Rust subcommunities currently separated
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by language, geography, or culture. We will spin up and support Rust events
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worldwide, including further growth of the RustBridge program.
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**Grow Rust's teams and new leaders within them**. We will refactor the Rust
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team structure to support more scale, agility, and leadership growth. We will
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systematically invest in mentoring, both by creating more on-ramp resources and
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through direct mentorship relationships.
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## A call to action
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As always in the Rust world, the goals laid out here will ultimately be the
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result of a community-wide effort—maybe one including you! Here are some of the
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teams where we could use the most help. Note that all IRC channels refer to the
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irc.mozilla.org network.
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- **WebAssembly WG**. Compiling Rust to WebAssembly should be _the_ best choice for fast code on the Web. Check out [rust-lang-nursery/rust-wasm](https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/rust-wasm) to learn more and get involved!
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- **CLI WG**. Writing CLI apps in Rust should be a frictionless experience – from finding the right libraries and writing concise integration tests up to cross-platform distribution. Join us at [https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/cli-wg](https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/cli-wg) and help us reach that goal!
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- **Embedded Devices WG**. Quality, productivity, accessibility: Rust can change the embedded industry for the better. Let's get this process started in 2018! Join us at [https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/embedded-wg](https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/embedded-wg)
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- **Ecosystem** WG: We'll be providing guidance and support to important crates throughout the ecosystem. Drop into the [WG-ecosystem room](https://gitter.im/rust-lang/WG-ecosystem) and we'll guide you to places that need help!
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- **Dev Tools Team**. There are always interesting things to tackle with developer tools (IDEs, rustdoc, Clippy, Rustfmt, custom test frameworks, and more). Drop in to [#rust-dev-tools](https://paper.dropbox.com/?q=%23rust-dev-tools) and have a chat with the team!
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- **Rustdoc Team**. With your help, we can make documentation better for everyone. Come join us in #rustdoc on IRC, and we can help you get started!
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- **Release team**. Drop by [#rust-release](https://paper.dropbox.com/?q=%23rust-release) on IRC to get involved with regression triage and release production!

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