Julia vs Rust
Julia is a high-level, dynamic programming language that was designed for high performance. It has many great features that make it well-suited for numerical analysis and computational science.
If you are interested in working on Data Visualization & Plotting, Data Science, Machine Learning, Parallel & Heterogeneous Computing, and Scientific Computing, you should learn Julia.
On the other hand, if you are interested in building command line tools, network services, embedded systems, webAssembly, or systems programming, you should learn Rust.
Rust is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language that emphasizes performance, type safety, and concurrency.
Comparing programming languages and choosing which one to learn can be tricky, there are many factors to consider in order to choose the right programming language for the job you want to do.
Popularity, opportunities, types of projects, salaries, resources, learning curve, etc. are some of the factors that many people consider when comparing programming languages and choosing which one to learn.
Here are some of the comparisons and considerations you should make when choosing to learn a new programming language.
JULIA VS RUST POPULARITY
Comparing the popularity of programming languages is not an easy task because each programming language is different and they all seek to solve different problems.
Plus, other programming languages have been around for a longer time than others, giving them more time to be tried and tested, so, bear that in mind.
If you want to learn a programming language solely for its popularity among developers, you should learn Rust over Julia.
Generally, Rust is more popular than Julia. The TIOBE index 2023 ranks Rust as the 19th most popular programming language while Julia is ranked as the 33rd most popular programming language.
According to a Stack Overflow survey of 2022, Rust is the 15th most commonly used programming language, it is used by 8.80% of professional developers.
On the other hand, Julia is the 35th most commonly used programming language, it is used by 1.04% of professional developers according to the same survey.
Further, Rust is more loved by developers than Julia. Rust has been the most loved programming language for seven years straight.
As of 2022, Rust is loved by 86.73% of developers versus 13.27% of developers who dreaded it. On the other hand, Julia is loved by 72.51% of developers versus 27.49% of developers who dreaded it.
Ultimately, if your choice of which programming language to learn depends on popularity, you should learn Rust.
Also read Best way to learn Julia
JULIA VS RUST SALARY
Another popular criterion that many people use to compare programming languages and as an incentive to learn a new programming language is salary.
Salaries for developers differ from one company to the other and from one country to the other.
Experience is another factor that comes into play as far as salaries are concerned. The more experience you have with a certain technology or programming language, the more likely you are of getting a higher salary.
Generally, Rust developers get higher salaries than Julia developers. According to a Stack Overflow survey of top-paying programming languages, Rust developers get an average salary of $87,047 per year.
On the other hand, Julia developers get an average salary of $77,966 per year about $9,000 less than Rust developers.
So, if the salary is your major incentive for learning a language, you should learn Rust over Julia, because you are more likely to get a higher salary as a Rust developer than as a Julia developer.
JULIA OR RUST WHICH ONE IS EASIER
Both Julia and Rust are easy languages to work with, they both have easy to understand syntax that is also simple to write.
Rust can be a little bit challenging, especially for complete beginners. Some Rust concepts like ownership and borrowing add a little bit of complexity to the language.
But if you are familiar with systems programming, you will find Rust very easy and straightforward.
Especially when you are targeting low-resource devices, Rust will give you low-level control without giving up high-level conveniences, this makes it a little bit easy to work on systems.
Julia can also be difficult sometimes, especially for complete beginners. Julia has some advanced and new programming concepts like macros, which can be quite challenging, especially for beginners.
If you are coming from a numerical and statistical background, you may find Julia easy and attractive.
The good news is that there are plenty of helpful resources for both Rust and Julia to help you learn the languages.
The Rust and Julia communities are very active and helpful, in case you get stuck with something.
Also read Best Way to Learn Rust
JULIA VS RUST PERFORMANCE
When it comes to performance comparison, both Julia and Rust are high performance languages. Rust has advantages over Julia when it comes to systems applications.
And Julia has advantages over Rust when it comes to scientific computing, machine learning, and statistics applications.
Generally, Julia is a more performant language than Rust. Julia is one of the few high-level programming languages in which petaFLOPS computations have been achieved, others being C, C++, and Fortran.
FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS
JULIA
Julia has many advanced features and libraries that make it a popular choice for Data Science, Machine Learning, Scientific Computing, Parallel Computing, and Data Visualization & Plotting.
Julia provides asynchronous I/O, metaprogramming, debugging, logging, profiling, a package manager, and more. This makes it possible to build entire applications and Microservices in Julia.
It has a built-in package manager called Pkg that handles operations such as installing, updating, and removing packages.
Julia also uses multiple dispatch as a paradigm, making it easy to express many object-oriented and functional programming patterns.
The beauty of Julia is that you call C programming language functions directly without wrappers or special APIs.
It also has foreign function interfaces that make it work well with other programming languages such as Python, R, C++, Java, and many others.
Python and R packages such as PyJulia and JuliaCall can be used to call Julia packages in a Python or R codebase.
Julia is used by many companies such as Aviva, NASA, Brazilian INPE, Moderna, BlackRock, Climate Modelling Alliance, Google, Microsoft, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and many others.
RUST
Rust has great unique features that make it suitable for building command line tools, network services, embedded systems, and more. One of the best features of Rust is how it handles memory.
While developers have to manually handle memory management in languages like C++ or use a garbage collector with languages like Go, Java, C#, Kotlin, etc. Rust takes a unique approach;
Developers can still handle memory without shooting themselves in the foot with a concept of ownership and borrowing. This makes it easy and quick to build reliable and efficient software.
Rust can also interface with other programming languages such as C and C++, it has a foreign function interface that can be used to call code written in C from Rust and to call Rust code from C.
Rust also has a library called CXX that can be used to call C++ code from Rust and to call Rust Code from C++.
There are many companies using Rust, some of the popular ones include Dropbox, Firefox, Cloudflare, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Discord, Mozilla, NPM, etc.
SHOULD I LEARN JULIA OR RUST
Once you have compared the languages and evaluated all the factors, you can choose which programming language to learn depending on the factors that are on your side and what you want to build.
If you want a fast and high-performance language that you can use for Data Visualization & Plotting, Data Science, Machine Learning, Parallel & Heterogeneous Computing, and Scientific Computing, you should learn Julia over Rust.
If you are interested in a high-paying language that can help you in developing systems quickly, working on command line tools, network services, embedded systems, and webAssembly, you should learn Rust over Julia
