Rust is a better c++. It's not appropriate for anything you wouldn't program in c++. The coding speed is slow
So if you are thinking about learning a new language to program your future apps you currently code in node, choose Go
The Rust language is a far better C++.
In practice, the compile time and binary size of Rust are out of control, which makes Rust far from being a slam dunk over C++. Crossing my fingers this will change!
The compile time story of rust and C++ is comparable, if you use it the same way. If you use deep include hierarchies and no precompiled headers, if you start using template heavy code like boost, or if you do code generation, the C++ compile times will quickly spiral out of control. Rust does not have the include problem, but the specialization/templating idea is shared with C++, and the code generation problem has an equivalent in the macro mechanism as used by e.g. serde.
In theory, you can get comparable compile times from both. Main difference is rust heavily emphasizes a programming strategy that depends on these 2, and it has a heavy cost in compile time. Meanwhile, a lot of the C++ code is still in the 'C-with-classes-and-every-vendor-creates-a-string-class' camp and while the abstraction level is lower, so is the compile time.
For the binary size, C++ can hide a lot of stuff in libraries, while rust compiles it in and duplicates it for each executable. So you pay a higher fixed cost per application. As long as rust has no stable ABI, rust will stay behind at this point. But it gets better optimization opportunities as it can merge the standard library code with yours, and inter library calls are more costly so runs wins there too. Presumably it's early day for a stable ABI in rust, big wins are still made. Long term, I'd personally like to see some ABI stability in the rust world.
But it's still something different than a real rust ABI. Basic things like pushing a string or an enum to a client will hurt. Providing a rust library without source is not an option for now.
Is there a report or study somewhere that shows how much it has improved?
I had heard improving compilation and build time was being worked on, but I don't get to use Rust much in my current work.
I would be interested to see how much improvement has been made and in what areas.