A Microsoft engineer recently announced on his personal page that Microsoft will remove all C and C++ code by 2030, replacing it with Rust.

This statement has sparked considerable attention and controversy. Microsoft’s preference for Rust is nothing new; over the years, Microsoft executives have repeatedly stated in interviews that they will switch from C to Rust, arguing that the latter is more secure, as many current network vulnerabilities are related to C’s memory management.

It’s not just Microsoft that’s switching to Rust; the Linux community is doing the same, with the latest kernel written in Rust, and many other companies sharing the same stance.

However, few companies are as aggressive as Microsoft, completely phasing out C/C++ in just five years, especially considering that a large number of Windows applications and underlying code are developed in C/C++. This transition is no simple process.

After publishing this article, the engineer deleted it, stating that the controversy it sparked exceeded his expectations. However, it’s more likely that his statement was merely his own, and the complete removal of C/C++ wasn’t Microsoft’s official stance.

Phasing out C/C++ was only the first part of the controversy his post generated. The second key point was his claim that Microsoft planned to rewrite the Windows system using Rust and AI, a goal just as explosive as the first.

Microsoft quickly denied this, with public relations executive Frank X. Shaw stating that Microsoft has no plans to rewrite Windows 11 using AI.

Of course, this clarification carries many implications for those familiar with large companies. Not rewriting Windows 11 with AI doesn’t mean not developing Windows 11 with AI. In this era of explosive growth in AI programming, it would be truly bizarre for a company like Microsoft to still be using traditional hand-written code for Windows 11 development.

Perhaps in the future, if Windows 11 has any strange bugs, people won’t immediately blame those three programmers, but rather the AI ​​code.