Keynote: Rust is not about memory safety - Helge Penne - NDC TechTown 2025

Helge Penne argues that the true value of Rust lies in its ability to prevent logical errors and design robust APIs, rather than just memory safety.

This talk was recorded at NDC TechTown in Kongsberg, Norway. #ndctechtown #ndcconferences #developer #softwaredeveloper Attend the next NDC conference near you: ndcconferences.com ndctechtown.com/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel and learn every day: / @NDC Follow our Social Media! facebook.com/ndcconferences twitter.com/NDC_Conferences instagram.com/ndc_conferences/ #rust #keynote #api Rust users are often very enthusiastic about their language. Sometimes annoyingly so. Where does this enthusiasm come from? There has been a lot of talk about Rust memory safety, but this does not explain why users are so positive about the language. Rust users will sometimes try to explain how Rust programs seem to "just work". Is there something to this? Where does this come from? And could this explain part of the enthusiasm? It could be argued that Rust is not really about memory safety specifically, but more about making incorrect programs in general harder to write. This talk will try to cover some of the language features and techniques behind this, like: - The strong type system - Strongly typed error handling - The lack of implicit conversions - Good API design for types like Options and Result - Sum types and pattern matching - The typestate pattern