Major developments are reshaping Rust's ecosystem landscape. The Rust Foundation launched its Innovation Lab to support critical projects, while performance improvements are accelerating across build tools and compiler optimization. From Mac-specific build gains to structured project goals delivering real results, the ecosystem shows remarkable momentum across all fronts.
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Faster Rust builds on Mac
Nicholas Nethercote discovered a simple macOS setting change that dramatically speeds up Rust builds. The key: disable XProtect scanning for Terminal by adding it as a "developer tool" in System Settings. This reduced the Rust compiler test suite from 9m42s to 3m33s.
The fix works because macOS scans every new executable for malware, hitting build scripts and test binaries hardest. After adding Terminal to developer tools, restart your terminal. Build scripts that took 0.48-3.88 seconds now complete in 0.06-0.14 seconds, with similar gains for cargo test and frequent rebuild cycles.
Faster Rust builds on Mac analysis
Rust Compiler performance survey results reveal developer priorities
The first-ever Rust compiler performance survey received over 3,700 responses, revealing critical pain points. 45% of former Rust users cited long compile times as a reason for leaving, while 55% of current users wait over 10 seconds for rebuilds. The team found that 60% of developers use cargo check as their primary command after code changes, but cache sharing between cargo check and cargo build remains a major friction point.
Rust compiler performance survey 2025 results
Rust Foundation launches Innovation Lab with Rustls
The Rust Foundation announced its Innovation Lab at RustConf 2025, providing governance oversight and fiscal sponsorship for critical projects. Rustls, a modern TLS library emphasizing security and performance, becomes the inaugural project. The lab offers stable infrastructure for key ecosystem tools.
This initiative addresses the sustainability challenge facing essential Rust libraries. With proper funding and governance, projects like Rustls can focus on development rather than maintenance concerns.
Rust Foundation Innovation Lab announcement
Rust project goals drive structured progress across ecosystem
The Rust project's goal-setting process continues delivering major achievements. Async closures stabilized in Rust 1.85 (February 2025), while Linux kernel tooling support advanced with stable compiler flags work.
The 2025H2 goals submission process recently closed, with proposed initiatives including reflection and comptime, production-ready Cranelift backend, and continued async improvements. The structured approach that delivered the Rust 2024 edition now tackles next-generation language capabilities.
Explore the complete Rust project goals program and achievements
Snippets
Rust 1.90.0 beta arrives September 18: The upcoming release includes stabilized features from recent RFCs and performance improvements identified in the compiler survey.
rustwasm organization archiving in September: The transition marks ecosystem maturity as wasm-bindgen moves to dedicated maintainership, ensuring continuity for WebAssembly development.
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