[Posted November 13, 2025 by corbet]
The Google Security Blog has a new post on just how well the use of Rust is working out for the Android project.
We adopted Rust for its security and are seeing a 1000x reduction in memory safety vulnerability density compared to Android's C and C++ code. But the biggest surprise was Rust's impact on software delivery. With Rust changes having a 4x lower rollback rate and spending 25% less time in code review, the safer path is now also the faster one.Code Review
Posted Nov 13, 2025 20:54 UTC (Thu) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] (5 responses)
Less time in code review? Maybe this isn't a good thing.
Code Review
Posted Nov 13, 2025 21:18 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Code Review
Posted Nov 13, 2025 21:36 UTC (Thu) by tux3 (subscriber, #101245) [Link]
Code Review
Posted Nov 13, 2025 21:45 UTC (Thu) by Vorpal (guest, #136011) [Link]
Code Review
Posted Nov 13, 2025 21:48 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]
Given that they also find a lower rollback rate, it sounds like the review goes faster because the code is easier to review. They say there's a big overlap between the coders working in C++ and Rust, so it would be odd if the same people were applying different reviewing standards depending on the language.Code Review
Posted Nov 13, 2025 23:52 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
It absolutely is a good thing. Remember that they are comparing Rust to C and C++, not to Java or Python.
Core reviewers are very through in Google and catch lots of memory safety bugs before fuzzers may do that… but that takes time.
Rust compiler does it much faster and automatically.
Of course you are still left with many issues that are more stylistic, but the lack of cognitive load from constantly rechecking object liveness story in your head is a big deal.
