The Rust Foundation, which stewards development of the Rust language, has released a statement addressing challenges and opportunities for interoperability between Rust and C++, with the intent of making cross-language development more accessible and approachable.
Formally announced November 12, the foundation’s C++/Rust Interoperability Problem Statement aims to overcome the obstacles to Rust-C++ interoperability. While C interoperability has been a focus of Rust, various factors have inhibited a mature, standard, and automatic solution for developing software using C++ and Rust together, the document states. To overcome these obstacles, the initiative will pursue a top-down, problem-space approach to enable cooperation and consensus among stakeholders including the Rust project, Rust Foundation member organizations, and individuals and organizations using C++ or Rust. The core challenge is in developing a mature, standardized approach to C++ and Rust interoperability, despite Rust’s historical focus on C compatibility.
Material resources contributed to the initiative will be used to pursue three concurrent strategies: