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<rant> I tried using Rust for a Nordic microcontroller project recently but ended up giving up

<rant> I tried using Rust for a Nordic microcontroller project recently but ended up giving up. It was just too difficult to figure out how to do things in Rust as a beginner. For example, I couldn't find a (maintained) Bluetooth stack for the nRF52. I finally figured how to link to Nordic's proprietary Bluetooth stack but then I realized I wanted to use the Thread protocol. I couldn't figure out how to do that. Meanwhile there are entire sample apps and guides in C for what I'm trying to achieve[0]. It sucks because I love Rust and would much rather use it than C/C++. I guess this is less of an obstacle for people who have embedded programming experience, but I don't. [0] https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/...

Original discussionRust on Espressif chips – 2023 Roadmap113 source comments · at import
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PA

That's ecosystem maturity problems. Regardless, your first mistake was not immediately reaching for linking to the C libs from Rust, which is something the language is designed to do rather easily.

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JA

Same experience - started and gave up so many times.. I am having luck currently with embassy-rs, on rp2040, including Wi-Fi, not BLE tho. I think overall the space is improving rapidly year-over-year. It’s hard with suppliers focusing on the C stacks and the Rust stuff being all volunteer.. but IMO things are getting better.

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DI

It's been a while, but tbf not using the Nordic proprietary BT stack on their microcontrollers was a pain in C too.

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