Learning rust for backend web dev?

58 points arnalduson

Hey all!

I am an experienced software engineer that have been mostly working with ruby/js. I have been looking for another language to learn to expand my toolset on my free time.

In the last year I've been learning Go and started playing around with it. It gets the job done and there are definitely some things I like about it, but at the same time I find it boring and even though I see the advantages of its simple syntax, the lack of expressiveness kills me. (I don't want to get too much into Go on this post though, just giving some context).

However, last month I started digging into Rust, and I find it so much fun! And the community and all the open source projects around seem amazing.

Having said that, I'm working on backend web dev and I will probably continue doing so long term. I don't see myself working on embedded systems and "low-level" stuff like building databases and such (for many reasons that I don't think are relevant here). I might play a bit with embedded systems in the future but just as a hobby.

I live in Spain and here I don't see many rust jobs other than for a few crypto companies. I wouldn't like to invest my time in Rust just for pure fun, as I'm also interested in learning something that could help me to expand my job opportunities in the next few years, and/or make me get better at software engineering.

Then my questions are:

  1. Do you think Rust has an opportunity to compete in backend web in the future? (I am interested in your thoughts/opinions, I know nobody can certainly know this).

  2. If you have experience both in Rust and Go: Do you think it's worth learning Rust just for backend or would I be spending my time on the wrong tool and Go is a way more solid choice?

  3. Have you seen more interest getting picked by companies in rust in the last couple of years in web dev? Or are you currently using Rust for high level applications?