A Vision for Cargo

Cargo has become a highly sought-after development tool, with many developers attributing their choice of Rust to its efficiency and capabilities. The crates.io ecosystem has been a significant factor in this, enabling rapid application creation with extensive functionality and polish. However, there is potential for improvement in various aspects of the workflow.

Crates.io has proven to be a superpower for Rust applications, allowing them to leverage existing functionality and future capabilities without re-inventing the wheel. Shared auditing of dependencies is also facilitated through this ecosystem, ensuring that applications can benefit from the work of others while maintaining their own security and performance.

To drive down dependency costs and risks, it is essential to aggregate known dependencies and make the process of finding and evaluating candidates more accessible. In the ideal world, all dependencies would undergo thorough review, but this is not currently achievable. Therefore, exploring alternative methods to improve audit discoverability and reduce the burden of manual review is crucial.

Linter and testing tools for maintainers should be improved to minimize bugs and unintended changes. While discouraging breaking changes is an option, it may come at the cost of technical debt clearance and feature development. Instead, encouraging better documentation of changes and surfacing them effectively would be a more comprehensive solution.

Rust's Edition system, which allows for opt-in breaking changes through unstable features and migration guides, could serve as inspiration for a similar approach in packages. By surfacing these changes inline within users' workflows, package maintainers can provide clearer guidance and facilitate smoother migration processes.

In terms of build performance, the focus should not merely be on incremental improvements but on fundamentally changing how users interact with Rust. Faster iteration times, both during development and testing, are crucial for maintaining user engagement and attracting a broader user base. This could involve optimizing the rustc compiler, as well as the overall user workflow, to reduce rebuild times and minimize disruptions.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a seamless, efficient, and secure Cargo workflow that empowers developers to build robust, high-performing applications with Rust. By addressing these various aspects and working collaboratively, the Cargo ecosystem can continue to evolve and thrive, benefiting both developers and the Rust programming language as a whole.