Rust 0.4

• ~2000 changes, numerous bugfixes

• Syntax

  • All keywords are now strict and may not be used as identifiers anywhere
  • Keyword removal: 'again', 'import', 'check', 'new', 'owned', 'send', 'of', 'with', 'to', 'class'.
  • Classes are replaced with simpler structs
  • Explicit method self types
  • ret became return and alt became match
  • import is now use; use is now extern mod`
  • extern mod { ... } is now extern { ... }
  • use mod is the recommended way to import modules
  • pub and priv replace deprecated export lists
  • The syntax of match pattern arms now uses fat arrow (=>)
  • main no longer accepts an args vector; use os::args instead

• Semantics

  • Trait implementations are now coherent, ala Haskell typeclasses
  • Trait methods may be static
  • Argument modes are deprecated
  • Borrowed pointers are much more mature and recommended for use
  • Strings and vectors in the static region are stored in constant memory
  • Typestate was removed
  • Resolution rewritten to be more reliable
  • Support for 'dual-mode' data structures (freezing and thawing)

• Libraries

  • Most binary operators can now be overloaded via the traits in `core::ops'
  • std::net::url for representing URLs
  • Sendable hash maps in core::send_map
  • `core::task' gained a (currently unsafe) task-local storage API

• Concurrency

  • An efficient new intertask communication primitive called the pipe, along with a number of higher-level channel types, in core::pipes
  • std::arc, an atomically reference counted, immutable, shared memory type
  • std::sync, various exotic synchronization tools based on arcs and pipes
  • Futures are now based on pipes and sendable
  • More robust linked task failure
  • Improved task builder API

• Other

  • Improved error reporting
  • Preliminary JIT support
  • Preliminary work on precise GC
  • Extensive architectural improvements to rustc
  • Begun a transition away from buggy C++-based reflection (shape) code to Rust-based (visitor) code
  • All hash functions and tables converted to secure, randomized SipHash

Rust 0.3

• ~1900 changes, numerous bugfixes

• New coding conveniences

  • Integer-literal suffix inference
  • Per-item control over warnings, errors
  • #[cfg(windows)] and #[cfg(unix)] attributes
  • Documentation comments
  • More compact closure syntax
  • 'do' expressions for treating higher-order functions as control structures
  • *-patterns (wildcard extended to all constructor fields)

• Semantic cleanup

  • Name resolution pass and exhaustiveness checker rewritten
  • Region pointers and borrow checking supersede alias analysis
  • Init-ness checking is now provided by a region-based liveness pass instead of the typestate pass; same for last-use analysis
  • Extensive work on region pointers

• Experimental new language features

  • Slices and fixed-size, interior-allocated vectors
  • #!-comments for lang versioning, shell execution
  • Destructors and iface implementation for classes; type-parameterized classes and class methods
  • 'const' type kind for types that can be used to implement shared-memory concurrency patterns

• Type reflection

• Removal of various obsolete features

  • Keywords: 'be', 'prove', 'syntax', 'note', 'mutable', 'bind', 'crust', 'native' (now 'extern'), 'cont' (now 'again')

  • Constructs: do-while loops ('do' repurposed), fn binding, resources (replaced by destructors)

• Compiler reorganization

  • Syntax-layer of compiler split into separate crate
  • Clang (from LLVM project) integrated into build
  • Typechecker split into sub-modules

• New library code

  • New time functions
  • Extension methods for many built-in types
  • Arc: atomic-refcount read-only / exclusive-use shared cells
  • Par: parallel map and search routines
  • Extensive work on libuv interface
  • Much vector code moved to libraries
  • Syntax extensions: #line, #col, #file, #mod, #stringify, #include, #include_str, #include_bin

• Tool improvements

  • Cargo automatically resolves dependencies

Rust 0.2

• 1500 changes, numerous bugfixes

• New docs and doc tooling

• New port: FreeBSD x86_64

• Compilation model enhancements

  • Generics now specialized, multiply instantiated
  • Functions now inlined across separate crates

• Scheduling, stack and threading fixes

  • Noticeably improved message-passing performance
  • Explicit schedulers
  • Callbacks from C
  • Helgrind clean

• Experimental new language features

  • Operator overloading
  • Region pointers
  • Classes

• Various language extensions

  • C-callback function types: 'crust fn ...'
  • Infinite-loop construct: 'loop { ... }'
  • Shorten 'mutable' to 'mut'
  • Required mutable-local qualifier: 'let mut ...'
  • Basic glob-exporting: 'export foo::*;'
  • Alt now exhaustive, 'alt check' for runtime-checked
  • Block-function form of 'for' loop, with 'break' and 'ret'.

• New library code

  • AST quasi-quote syntax extension
  • Revived libuv interface
  • New modules: core::{future, iter}, std::arena
  • Merged per-platform std::{os*, fs*} to core::{libc, os}
  • Extensive cleanup, regularization in libstd, libcore

Rust 0.1

• Most language features work, including:

  • Unique pointers, unique closures, move semantics
  • Interface-constrained generics
  • Static interface dispatch
  • Stack growth
  • Multithread task scheduling
  • Typestate predicates
  • Failure unwinding, destructors
  • Pattern matching and destructuring assignment
  • Lightweight block-lambda syntax
  • Preliminary macro-by-example

• Compiler works with the following configurations:

  • Linux: x86 and x86_64 hosts and targets
  • macOS: x86 and x86_64 hosts and targets
  • Windows: x86 hosts and targets

• Cross compilation / multi-target configuration supported.

• Preliminary API-documentation and package-management tools included.

Known issues:

• Documentation is incomplete.

• Performance is below intended target.

• Standard library APIs are subject to extensive change, reorganization.

• Language-level versioning is not yet operational - future code will break unexpectedly.