Microsoft wants to translate its codebase to Rust, and is hiring people to make it happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is to eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030,\u201d Microsoft distinguished engineer Galen Hunt wrote in a recent LinkedIn<\/a> post.<\/p>\n \u201cOur strategy is to combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft\u2019s largest codebases,\u201d he added. \u201cOur North Star is \u20181 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hunt\u2019s post mentions a job ad<\/a> for a Principal Software Engineer who will be expected to work on the tools Microsoft is building to pull this off.<\/p>\n \u201cThe purpose of this \u2026 role is to help us evolve and augment our infrastructure to enable translating Microsoft\u2019s largest C and C++ systems to Rust,\u201d Hunt wrote.<\/p>\n Microsoft has already built some tools to make the move.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve built a powerful code processing infrastructure,\u201d Hunt wrote. \u201cOur algorithmic infrastructure creates a scalable graph over source code at scale. Our AI processing infrastructure then enables us to apply AI agents, guided by algorithms, to make code modifications at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n Whoever gets the job will work within Microsoft\u2019s Future of Scalable Software Engineering group, a team Hunt says has a mission to \u201cbuild capabilities to allow Microsoft and our customers to eliminate technical debt at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe pioneer new tools and techniques with internal customers and partners, and then work with other product groups to deploy those capabilities at scale across Microsoft and across the industry,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Unlike C and C++, Rust is a memory-safe language, meaning it uses automated memory management to avoid out-of-bounds reads and writes, and use-after-free errors, as both offer attackers a chance to control devices. In recent years, governments<\/a> have called for universal adoption of memory-safe languages \u2013 and especially Rust \u2013 to improve software security.<\/p>\n Microsoft has also called for greater use of Rust. In 2022, the CTO of the company\u2019s Azure cloud called<\/a> Rust to become the default language for new projects. Microsoft scientists have worked on<\/a> a tool that automatically converts some C code to Rust.<\/p>\n The software behemoth has also created<\/a> tools to help developers write Windows drivers using Rust.<\/p>\n