Introducing RustRover – A Standalone Rust IDE and important information about our GitHub issue tracker

[Maksim20023]

We’re excited to announce the launch of RustRover – an IDE for Rust.
As part of our improvement process, we’re making changes to our support services and introducing the Rust Support portal. Accordingly, we will no longer be using the GitHub issue tracker for support requests related to RustRover.
The Rust Support portal is designed to provide you with a more efficient and organized way to access resources, report bugs, and submit feature requests.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation and believe that this change will enable us to provide you with even better support.
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to us via a support request, email:rustrover-support@jetbrains.com, or by creating a new issue.

[SirMishaa]

Hello, very happy to see a dedicated IDE for Rust.

Nevertheless, why is the old Rust plugin deprecated? In favor of the new one, which seems to be exactly the same as the old one?

By this I mean that it could be confusing for some people, that you have to uninstall the old one and reinstall the new one on Clion for example.

Regards

[DRSchlaubi]

I assume since the new plugin depends on com.intellij.modules.ultimate that they want to drop the free option, they're a commercial company which makes tools after all, so I think everyone knew this would happen eventually.

It also depends on com.intellij.modules.rust-capable so i assume this is so you can either buy RustRover once it comes out or use CLion or IntelliJ Ultimate

[blueglyph]

I'm glad to see a dedicated IDE, and it makes sense since the Rust flow isn't really the same as the Java/Kotlin flow. Financially, it makes sense too; the plugin was swamped by the increasing number of issues anyway.

But that means that, until it's completed, we'll have the choice between two unstable solutions. And then, we'll have to pay for one extra IDE if we still need IntelliJ UE - which isn't cheap - for Kotlin. Finally, that's one more platform for you to maintain; I'm concerned when I see the number of issues creeping into IntelliJ and that remains for months or years.

[DRSchlaubi]

You don't need to buy Rustrover if you own IntelliJ Ultimate or CLion, you can just install the new Rust Plugin

[blueglyph]

Hopefully that remains the case. What they wrote about it leaves some doubt as to whether they'll keep that solution or just decide the IDE is sufficient.

Like many of our IDEs, the functionality of RustRover can be installed as a plugin in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate.

During the preview period, it will also be possible to install the plugin in CLion. However, we have yet to determine whether this will be the case once we’ve released RustRover. This is because we’re still not certain whether users will need the plugin or whether a dedicated Rust IDE will be sufficient.

The text is in the same paragraph as 'CLion' but the argument clearly applies to the IntelliJ plugin too (if not more, because of the relative difference of workflows).

But another way to see it is that the Ultimate Edition may not be necessary any more for users who only bought it for Rust. So switching to the CE and buying RustRover may be a good move for those users, since they're less likely to require IntelliJ UE for Kotlin and something else for a completely different language like Rust.

I'm still concerned by the huge number of bugs on those platforms though, especially since there are more of those platforms, more features, 2 different IDE presentations, ... Many of the issues I've reported these last few years are in limbo, and that will not improve the situation.

[DRSchlaubi]

I don't think having a separate idea will introduce more bugs, the fact that rust is no a commercially supported language probably will improve stability since they pour more resources into development

[blueglyph]

Maybe, maybe not. Usually, more software means more to maintain and a greater risk of bugs. Here, instead of the open-source plugin, there will be not only the new IDE but a new plugin as well.

Anyway, not much we can do but wait and see where the priorities will be.

[kLiHz]

I think it would be nice to add some notice to the repo's README, like referring to this announcement or marking the repository as deprecated too.

And it looks like some existing issues in this repo have been imported onto YouTrack and are planned to be further discussed there (see also the blog Introducing RustRover – A Standalone Rust IDE by JetBrains). How about adding a reference to the original issues as weel so that participants and possible future visitors can know where to go for any latest development?

[DRSchlaubi]

Well the new ide is the new plugin, so it's not exactly more software to maintain imo

[blueglyph]

Well the new ide is the new plugin, so it's not exactly more software to maintain imo

It's not exactly how it works. Plugins are loaded by the main platform software, like IntelliJ, CLion, or RustRover. Both the plugin and the platform have to be developed and maintained. Moreover, the whole code base that is currently in the open project has to move to the new proprietary plugin, along with all the current issues. Finally, the integration into the multiple platforms has to be maintained and verified, too (if they go along with this idea).

Besides, if there wasn't more software, it wouldn't take one year (if there's no delay...) to develop the new IDE until release status.

It's really a bad move for many people. For example, I'm only paying the Intellij UE licence to use the Rust plugin, but now it's not maintained anymore. This means I'm paying almost one year for something I can't use anymore. Worse: instead, I have to use an early access version of a new IDE that will be even more unstable than IntelliJ.

[DRSchlaubi]

It's not exactly how it works. Plugins are loaded by the main platform software, like IntelliJ, CLion, or RustRover. Both the plugin and the platform have to be developed and maintained. Moreover, the whole code base that is currently in the open project has to move to the new proprietary plugin, along with all the current issues. Finally, the integration into the multiple platforms has to be maintained and verified, too (if they go along with this idea).

RustRover is not the Platform, IntelliJ is, the way how all IntelliJ based IDEs (including RustRover) are essentially IntelliJ with a different set of bundled plugins, whilst IntelliJ the IDE is actually called IntelliJ IDEA which conforms to the same approach²

So this is how it has worked since the beginning of the plugin and is nothing new

Besides, if there wasn't more software, it wouldn't take one year (if there's no delay...) to develop the new IDE until release status.

Yes, you're right; there is more, the delay is probably caused be stuff like build infrastructure, the marketing and documentation material, the support desk and other product-related things. Also, you're right, moving the plugin repository and integrating it into the IntelliJ repo takes time, also they might worked on new features which are not available yet. But those shouldn't dramatically change the development process of the plugin, since it is still an IntelliJ platform plugin

It's really a bad move for many people. For example, I'm only paying the Intellij UE licence to use the Rust plugin, but now it's not maintained anymore. This means I'm paying almost one year for something I can't use anymore. Worse: instead, I have to use an early access version of a new IDE that will be even more unstable than IntelliJ.

The new IDE is just IntelliJ with the Java plugins stripped and the rust plugin installed, if you really want to, you could install the new Rust plugin in IntelliJ and it will be just as "stable" as before

[blueglyph]

It's not exactly how it works. Plugins are loaded by the main platform software, like IntelliJ, CLion, or RustRover. Both the plugin and the platform have to be developed and maintained. Moreover, the whole code base that is currently in the open project has to move to the new proprietary plugin, along with all the current issues. Finally, the integration into the multiple platforms has to be maintained and verified, too (if they go along with this idea).

RustRover is not the Platform, IntelliJ is, the way how all IntelliJ based IDEs (including RustRover) are essentially IntelliJ with a different set of bundled plugins, whilst IntelliJ the IDE is actually called IntelliJ IDEA which conforms to the same approach²

So this is how it has worked since the beginning of the plugin and is nothing new

But so they are in effect different platforms, which means that they have to test the integration of the plugins and maintain it separately, because the combinations and the environments are not the same.

It's not a huge amount of extra software, I agree. But they are already losing ground on the quantity of issues, so that certainly won't improve the situation. Hopefully the extra revenues will help them in that regard, once the new IDE is released.

The new IDE is just IntelliJ with the Java plugins stripped and the rust plugin installed, if you really want to, you could install the new Rust plugin in IntelliJ and it will be just as "stable" as before

Thanks for making me try again! For some reason, it failed when I tried the first time but it must have been a mistake. There was some cleaning to do, but now the new plugin is fine in IntelliJ. That's indeed good news.

[blueglyph]

For information, I received this confirmation by email. As I suspected, the text is not correctly formatted and there's a doubt for both IntelliJ and CLion regarding the plugin in the future:

As said in the announcement, RustRover is available as a plugin to IntelliJ IDEA during the preview period. However, we have yet to determine whether this will be the case once we’ve released RustRover.
This is because we’re still not certain whether users will need the plugin or whether a dedicated Rust IDE will be sufficient. Around the release time, when we make our decision.
We’ll also consider the cases when IntelliJ IDEA licenses were primarily bought for Rust development with the IntelliJ Rust plugin and which options we can suggest to our users in these cases. Please stay tuned!

[Techcable]

It's sad that JetBrains is getting attacked for this decision. While it is always disappointing to see open-source projects become proprietary, I am hopeful this will increase the pace of development and keep it sustainable. JetBrains did the same thing with the go plugin and GoLand. They did keep the plugin available in IntelliJ Ultimate.

In the past couple of years, IDE quality has improved significantly for both rust-analyzer and the JetBrains rust plugin. If you can not afford RustRover, you will still have the option to use rust-analyzer. It's very exciting we have two excellent options for IDEs, and I think making the rust plugin paid could encourage even more healthy competition :)

Keep in mind that JetBrains employees have made the vast majority of contributions to this repository. The main author of Rust Analyzer used to be a Jetbrains employee too. He is the one who wrote the initial code for the plugin before he started rust-analyzer. JetBrains is also joining the Rust Foundation, contributing money and resources to developing the official compiler.

Furthermore, Jetbrains has very generous free licensing for students at universities.

However, it would be extremely inconvenient if the Rust Plugin is unavailable in CLion. I am willing to pay extra for the plugin or tolerate a price hike in the cost of standalone CLion, as long as the Rust plugin remains available. At least for me, combining C/C++ development with support for Rust is essential.

I am not the only one that thinks this. One of dtolnay's most popular projects is his cxx project (it has 5000+ stars on github, which is more than intellij-rust). Additionally, a major early driver for the Rust compiler was the "oxidation" project in Mozilla Firefox, incrementally replacing C/C++ components with Rust.

Other companies have made similar commitments. Google even wrote an automatic bindings generator autocxx to generate bindings to dtolnay's cxx project.

I think separating the Rust plugin from CLion would be a mistake that could not only derail the release of RustRover, but also strongly discourage people from using CLion. (especially when clangd + rust-analyzer is a viable free alternative...)

[blueglyph]

I've also seen several users with the same concerns about the future of the plugin in CLion and IntelliJ.

From what JetBrains said, I believe they'll see the need to keep the plugin available in those products if they read the feedback. I don't understand why there isn't a poll to determine that. Again, the idea of a new product makes sense, but it's been very badly handled.

[Techcable]

From what JetBrains said, I believe they'll see the need to keep the plugin available in those products if they read the feedback. I don't understand why there isn't a poll to determine that. Again, the idea of a new product makes sense, but it's been very badly handled.

I 100% agree on the need for feedback. I wrote a 4-star review on the new Rust plugin in the JetBrains marketplace, indicating that I need CLion support.

If you agree that CLion support is essential, please leave your own review on the new Rust plugin (click here).

I hate to sound like a YouTube comment section, but you can also leave a 👍 or a 🚀 on this comment to indicate you agree with the need for CLion support.

[blueglyph]

I've written a honest review.

It's worrying to see people bomb-reviewing this plugin; that won't help maintaining it for IntelliJ and CLion.

[ravidqm]

Running both CLion and Rust code is very useful for me. running both rust and c++ code in the same binary file.
This is like going few steps back... at least add C++ support for the rustRover.

[ssh352]

RustRover sucks, at least for the time being. Throws a ton of exceptions. So today I switched back to clion.

[jfirebaugh]

@Maksim20023 FYI, JetBrains support staff appears to be out of the loop with regards to whether the functionality of RustRover will really be available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. I made a support request (#5588939) asking:

https://blog.jetbrains.com/rust/2023/09/13/introducing-rustrover-a-standalone-rust-ide-by-jetbrains/ says "Like many of our IDEs, the functionality of RustRover can be installed as a plugin in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate."

I have an active IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate subscription but I don't see the RustRover plugin available. Only the existing Rust plugin, which is now marked as "Deprecated".

The response was:

The Rust plugin is indeed the plugin that implements Rust support in IntelliJ IDEA. As mentioned in the Existing Open-Source Plugin paragraph, the plugin will still be available to install but won't be maintained anymore; that's why it is marked as deprecated. You can install and use it with your IntelliJ IDEA.

Which is confusing and contradictory to the blog post, which implies that there will be a maintained Rust plugin available for IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate.

The confusion here may be that there are now two rust plugins:

• https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/8182--deprecated-rust -- the old deprecated one.
• https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/22407-rust -- the new one, which seemingly needs to be installed via a manual download. It didn't show up in Settings -> Plugins -> Marketplace for me.

[blueglyph]

The plugin mentioned in your quote seems to be the open-source plugin, which is deprecated and won't be maintained any more because Jetbrains has taken the development internally - that's the Rust plugin.

They don't know yet if that plugin will remain available for IntelliJ and CLion after RustRover exits the EAP. We're only hoping so.