JetBrains releases standalone RustRover ide for Rust

JetBrains releases a new idea for work with Rust. RustRover is a standalone IDE that exists alongside tools such as IntelliJ IDEA and is specifically suited for that programming language. The existing plug-in will continue to exist, but will eventually disappear.

JetBrains say that RustRover will initially be available as an early access program. The integrated development environment can still be used free of charge during a public preview phase. JetBrains only wants to determine later what the licensing model will look like in the future. The preview phase will run until September 2024 at the latest, but may also end earlier.

The idea is called RustRover. This is an ide that works specifically with Rust without having to be loaded as a plug-in into existing ide’s such as IntelliJ IDEA and CLion. However, the functionality of RustRover can also be loaded as a plug-in in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. This is also possible for CLion during the preview phase, but the company says it is not clear whether it will continue with the latter.

The existing plugin that programmers use in IntelliJ for Rust will continue to exist and will also remain open source available through GitHub and the JetBrains Marketplace. The company does warn that it will “do its best” to ensure compatibility with new IDE versions, but that it will no longer provide bug fixes or add new features to that plugin.

RustRover has templates for Rust, as well as code additions and improvements. The ide automatically repairs certain parts that are incorrect. Furthermore, the ide has standard functionalities such as syntax highlights, a debugger and test environment. RustRover also has full support for command-line interface applications and support for Docker and Visual Studio Code. In addition to Rust, RustRover also supports Cargo and TOML.