Announcing Rust 1.3

Rust 1.3 ships the first release containing the Rustonomicon, stabilizes the new Duration API, speeds up several standard-library operations, adds preliminary Windows XP targeting, and prevents dependency lints from disrupting clean builds.

The Rustonomicon documents advanced and unsafe Rust

This is the first Rust release shipping with the Rustonomicon, a new book covering advanced and unsafe Rust programming. Although still in draft form, it already provides deep coverage of some of Rust’s darker corners.

Library APIs expand while common operations get faster

The standard library stabilizes the new Duration API and enhancements to Error, Hash, and Hasher. Further growth of std::time was expected around the Rust 1.5 timeframe.

The release also continues the focus on performance:

The substring matcher uses a more efficient algorithm.
Improvements to zero filling speed up Vec::resize and Read::read_to_end.
Read::read_to_end is specialized for stdin and File, producing additional speedups.
The PartialEq implementation on slices is now much faster.

Windows XP becomes a preliminary target

Rust 1.3 adds preliminary support for targeting Windows XP. XP is not intended to be a first-tier platform, but building Rust code for it is now feasible subject to standard-library limitations. MSVC toolchain integration remained in progress, with full 64-bit support shipping in the Rust 1.4 beta released that day.

Cargo caps dependency lints to protect clean builds

Cargo gains lint capping, following an earlier RFC. Lints in dependencies should no longer affect a project’s ability to compile cleanly, making it easier to adjust lint behavior without undue hassle across the ecosystem.