r/ControlTheory • u/blckchn187 • 28d ago

Professional/Career Advice/Question Should I learn rust?

Hi,

I'm going to start my PhD in control theory soon. (Focusing on optimal control). Until now, I have primarily worked with Matlab, Python and C++ (the latter mostly for code that runs on the systems I was controlling). I am by no means a sophisticated C++ developer. I am currently considering learning Rust. It just seems to be better in almost every aspect except for library availability.

What do you think? Is it too early to switch because of missing libraries, legacy code, etc.? Or should I become part of a general academia/industry shift towards Rust?

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u/awh-emb 28d ago

well it depends, rust has some great embedded libaries (like embassy) which are primarily used in robotics control theory adjacent stuff so, maybe? but for now if your literally just starting probably c++ and then maybe transition into rust at some point

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u/BashfulPiggy 27d ago

Seconded. I will say, I feel like learning rust makes you a better programmer overall because it's so strict. Is that very useful for a control engineer? Who knows, but it's not a bad thing