Vitaly begins the interview by sharing how he went from teaching Haskell to promoting Rust and how Rust differs from other languages in memory management. Luca and he then discuss how Rust's memory handling can be tricky, especially compared to Haskell, and how Rust's way of writing code may be more challenging to understand for some developers.
Vitaly talks about JetBrains’ decision to make a tool just for Rust, highlighting their intention of supporting Rust developers. He says there's a gap between the number of tools available for Rust and how many people are using them and stresses the importance of user feedback to improve said tools. Luca adds that there are cultural and educational reasons why Rust developers might not use tools like debuggers.
Vitaly then discusses JetBrains’ potential role in providing more professional tools for Rust as the language becomes more popular in different areas beyond web development. He warns that making Rust too complicated might turn some people away and emphasizes how JetBrains is working on making it easier for developers to learn and use Rust with their tools.
Luca and Vitaly also mention how Rust is becoming more popular for backend development because of its performance and safety features. Vitaly concludes the interview by encouraging viewers to give feedback on JetBrains' RustRover to improve it.