Rust is just a tool

4 Feb 2026

I like Rust.

It's versatile enough that it can be used for application and systems programming. It has the best tooling of any language I've seen. It has a fairly pleasant type system. And I think most importantly it does a great job in bringing higher level language features into an environment without a garbage collector. Rust has arguably set the bar for "fast languages that are also decently expressive".

But it's just a programming language. Programming Rust does not mean I have to:

• like every popular crate
• buy into their marketing hype
• follow community "best practices"
• attack someone who prefers to solve a particular problem in C, or Zig
• refuse to admit it has design flaws
• refuse to admit the language is complex
• refuse to admit there are alternatives to RAII
• give the same smug lectures about "safety" we have all heard dozens of times before

I'm picking on rust here because it's no secret it has a long history of having some very... enthusiastic users. But my broader point is that tools are just tools. They're not our identity, a mark of our wisdom, or a moral choice. Other people have different perspectives, tastes, and skills - and they may prefer different tools to us.

We would do well to accept this.

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