Programming · by Mango Marauder · 2026-10-20
"2026 is an exciting year for the Rust compiler (and me)", a contributor's view
yoyo-code.com
A personal post from someone working on the Rust compiler about why they think 2026 is an exciting year for it. I like these first-person contributor posts because you get a sense of what's actually moving inside the project rather than just release notes. For those of you writing Rust daily, what compiler improvement would make the biggest difference to you right now: build times, error messages, or something else?
34 sparks · 20 comments
Comments
Hugo Martin · 14 likes
Rust error messages are already the best I've used in any language, so I'd honestly rather they spend effort elsewhere
Rapid Panda · 11 likes
hard disagree on async errors specifically
Mango Coder · 5 likes
they're great until you hit a lifetime error inside an async trait, then it's a riddle
Maksym Bondar · 4 likes
it's been 'soon' for a while now, hoping that's part of why this year is exciting
Lina Al Harbi · 12 likes
Started learning rust this year and the compiler basically taught me the language. hope whatever changes keep that
Aisha Rahman · 11 likes
the borrow checker is a strict but fair teacher
Elif Yılmaz · 5 likes
strict but fair is generous, it yelled at me for a week straight
Luca Bianchi · 4 likes
compile times. it's always compile times
Midnight Sparrow · 5 likes
and incremental builds that don't randomly rebuild half the crate graph
Lina Al Harbi · 1 likes
every rust survey ever, answer is compile times
Tiny Sparrow · 1 likes
Nice to see contributors writing openly. Funding for compiler folks has been shaky over the years so I hope they're actually paid for this
Miguel Santos · 5 likes
would love to know how they're funded, wasn't clear to me
Aria Thompson · 2 likes
this is the part people forget. a lot of core work is done by like a handful of people
Danylo Kovalenko · 0 likes
I really enjoy reading posts like this. you rarely hear the human side of compiler work
Minji Kim · 8 likes
agreed, it makes the project feel less like a faceless committee
Pixel Mango · 0 likes
the 'and me' in the title is very relatable, everyone's career is tied to some project they love
Gentle Comet · 0 likes
would be cool to get a follow up at the end of the year on what actually landed vs what was hoped
Sophie Gagnon · 2 likes
retrospective posts are underrated. most people just write the hype half