Azure CTO Urges Developers to Stop Starting New C/C++ Projects and Favor Rust – Bjarne Stroustrup Responds

Microsoft Azure CTO and Sysinternals lead developer Mark Russinovich recently posted on social media that it is time for developers to stop starting new C/C++ projects and, where a non‑GC language is required, to use Rust instead.

“When it comes to languages, it’s time to stop using C/C++ for any new projects and use Rust in those non‑GC scenarios. For safety and reliability, the industry should announce the deprecation of these languages.”

The statement drew a swift response from C++’s creator, Bjarne Stroustrup, who defended the language by noting that years of effort have been invested in improving C++ safety, including perfect type and memory safety in the ISO standard that eliminates dangling pointers, range errors, and data races.

Stroustrup also emphasized that even “safe” languages like Rust allow unsafe code, and highlighted the C++ Core Guidelines—a set of rules enforced by static analysis to ensure safety, because arbitrary C or C++ code cannot prove its own safety.

He pointed out that tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio and Clang‑Tidy already implement parts of these analyses, and that while C++ continues to evolve with performance and flexibility improvements, replacing billions of lines of existing C++ code is a gradual, challenging task.

“People—especially some executives—are enamored with new things that promise to make their lives easier. However, new languages often require years and massive effort to match the maturity of established ones.”

The remarks sparked extensive discussion among developers. Some questioned whether Russelovich’s comment reflected personal opinion or an official Microsoft stance; Microsoft did not respond to inquiries. Others debated the availability of Rust developers, with some arguing that young developers can learn Rust quickly, while others warned that abandoning C/C++ is difficult.

Various community voices highlighted that no language solves every problem, noting that Rust, Go, Nim, Crystal, and Zig each have strengths and limitations. The conversation also referenced recent Rust‑related news, such as Linus Torvalds’ indication that Rust may enter the Linux kernel in version 6.1, Cloudflare’s shift from Nginx to a Rust‑based proxy, and the formation of a dedicated Rust security team.

Links to related discussions on Hacker News, Reddit, and other sources were provided for further reading.