Rust/WinRT for Windows 10 now in Public Preview

Rust is a programming language designed for high performance, highly safe systems, and Microsoft has just announced that they are bringing support for Rust to Windows via a Rust language projections for the Windows Runtime.

Rust closely resembles C++ in many ways, but is designed from the ground up with memory safety and safe concurrency as core principles.

Rust/WinRT follows in the tradition established by C++/WinRT of building language projections for the Windows Runtime using standard languages and compilers, providing a natural and idiomatic way for Rust developers to call Windows APIs.

Rust/WinRT lets developers call any WinRT API past, present, and future using code generated on the fly directly from the metadata describing the API and right into the Rust package where you can call them as if they were just another Rust module.

The Windows Runtime is based on Component Object Model (COM) APIs under the hood and is designed to be accessed through language projections like C++/WinRT and Rust/WinRT. Those language projections take the metadata describing various APIs and provide natural bindings for the target programming language.

This allows developers to more easily build apps and components for Windows using their desired language. You can then use those Windows APIs to build desktop apps, store apps, or something more unique like a component, NT service, or device driver.

The Rust/WinRT language project is currently in a very early public preview, but Microsoft decided to make the project open right now to get more feedback.

Find the project at GitHub here, and read more about the announcement at Microsoft here.

Via WalkingCat