> I'm pretty sure that the range of platforms for which Go does cross compilation "very well" is quite small
Given that the number of popular platforms is approximately 2 (Intel and ARM), I don't see that as a huge problem.
Given that the number of popular platforms is approximately 2 (Intel and ARM), I don't see that as a huge problem.
Also, you'd be surprised how often people request minor platforms. It's enough that we regularly get people asking for a C backend because they only have a C compiler for that target (though I think a C backend ends up usually not being what those people actually want).
In any case, just having a Rust compiler isn't very useful; you need a standard library (or at least libcore) to do anything interesting with the language, and that's where most of the porting effort comes in.
So the number of platforms is approximately {x86-32, x86-64, ARM, AArch64}×{Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, Android} (- a few combos) ~= 17 (I think). MIPS, Sparc, and PowerPC can be useful in some scenarios, as can even x86-16 (hey, wanna write the initial startup code on x86?), and platforms like PNaCl, Emscripten, or WebAssembly are effectively their own platforms as well.