To give a short answer: It works, and it does so with a high degree of stability and security. A slightly longer answer is that there are a multitude of programming languages out there, all adhering to different paradigms. Functional, imperative, logical, object-oriented, statically or dynamically typed, with or without garbage collection, and virtual machine or smart pointers.

In the case of Eden, it requires primarily speed and stability, and when performance is mentioned, C and C++ have traditionally been the go-to languages. They have a better performance compared to most others, because the closer to the machine the better. Upon this, C and C++ also have a stable and large online community, support and off-the-shelf solutions.

So why then should one look beyond the C family? You should not unless you want the stability verified at compile time. This is the key to our focus on developing on Rust, because it is at compile time that Rust really shines. In practical terms, everyone that has been trying to hunt down an illusive memory bug in C or C++ would probably agree that it would be better if the erroneous code was found and corrected already at compile time (at least I know I do).

Rust does just that. It has a memory ownership model built into the language that forces the programmer to build memory safe code. It does take a while to get used to, but the benefits outweigh the discomfort. A tendency seen, when we read that Rust is being used more and more, and it has also been voted the “most loved” language on stackoverflow 5 years in a row (which in itself is quite a feat).

Rust is a very suitable language to choose for Eden, because on top of the aforementioned reasons, it has a low overhead and zero-cost abstractions. All great for embedded systems, and as mentioned the community around Rust is active and growing as more and more people see the benefits of the language, as we can verify with the 5-year top loved language. All in all, RUST is the best choice for Eden.