Rust is about to explode in robotics
Mark my words: Rust is about to explode in robotics — and coding agents are the main driver.
@rerundotio and @maticrobots were right about Rust from the beginning. The #1 requirement for agentic coding (e.g., in Claude Code) is a tight feedback loop with clear error signals. Rust's compiler is perfect for this: if it compiles, it's (mostly!) memory-safe and data-race-free. C++ lets agents generate code that compiles fine and segfaults at runtime. That's a terrible feedback loop.
Rust's package ecosystem (http://crates.io + Cargo) is another huge advantage. Agents can discover, add, and build dependencies with zero human intervention. There's nothing even close in the C++ world, I'm sure even C++ guys are not going to argue with this.
"But C++ has all the libraries!" - this is true today. But the libraries that matter at runtime (inference, sensor drivers, motion planning) are increasingly available. And you don't need PyTorch at runtime.
"But there's way more C++ to train on!" - there's also way more C++ footguns to learn from. Quality > quantity. Rust's smaller, more modern corpus arguably produces better output for agents with fewer hallucinated patterns.
OK, what about hiring? Agents dramatically reduce the importance of team size. One strong engineer with agents writing Rust > a team writing C++ and debugging segfaults in runtime. Also, people really love learning and writing in Rust!