Microsoft revealed its intention to transition its product code to the Rust language by 2030. Artificial intelligence agents will primarily perform this task, but the company will also hire new engineers for the project.
Image source: Simon Ray / unsplash.com
Image source: Simon Ray / unsplash.com
The software giant’s plans were announced by the company’s lead engineer, Galen Hunt—he added that a vacancy for a senior software engineer has opened, who will be tasked with working on the tools Microsoft is preparing to achieve this objective. “The objective of this <..> position is to assist us in developing and extending our infrastructure to facilitate the migration of Microsoft’s largest systems from C and C++ to Rust. <..> We have constructed a robust code processing infrastructure. Our algorithmic infrastructure will generate scalable graphs encompassing source code at a major scale. Subsequently, our AI processing infrastructure will help us engage AI-guided agents to implement code modifications extensively,” Mr. Hunt clarified.
Rust differs from C and C++ because it is memory-safe, helps prevent out-of-bounds read/write operations, as well as errors related to using memory after its deallocation—such mistakes often turn into software vulnerabilities. In recent years, even governmental bodies have urged developers to move to memory-safe languages, including Rust. Microsoft also endeavors to broaden the scope of Rust’s application—in 2022, the technical director of the Azure cloud platform named it the default language for new initiatives; company researchers have also been developing a tool for the automatic conversion of C code snippets to Rust.
Considering the vast number of Microsoft’s software products, the volume of the codebase within the firm signifies that it will need to undertake enormous work to convert it to another language. Even with the presence of AI agents and the software giant’s significant resources, completing this task by 2030 will be challenging.
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