Towards Rust for Critical Systems

Abstract

The programming language landscape in software development for aerospace and other safety-critical domains is comprised of low-level languages such as C which require a heavy verification effort, and languages such as Ada which have higher safety guarantees but are often seen as unpopular with developers. The industry has struggled to adopt newer languages with more modern features that can increase quality, productivity and enjoyment for developers. Rust is a promising new language, that attempts to combine user friendliness with strong safety support, while also delivering modern convenience features. In this paper we present an analysis of the potential benefits of the adoption of Rust for safety critical systems through an analysis of safety coding guidelines for C that Rust would alleviate. This paper presents an initial understanding of the potential benefits of Rust, to enable clearer evaluation of the value proposition of using Rust in safety critical domains.