Does it mean we could translate languages like Ruby and Python to Rust?

While it might be possible my guess is it would be much more difficult than C. AFAIK Rust is more or less a superset of C whereas Python and Ruby have numerous advanced features that aren't present in Rust and would likely require a bespoke Rust runtime to emulate the behaviour. Types is also a whole can of worms here.

I think in relation to Ruby, Python and other languages like them Rust's best application is leveraging the support for C FFIs to replace hot paths. While Rust has a significant learning curve it's probably much simpler, for say a ruby programmer, to pick it up and write safe performant code than C.

jashmatthews

There's an effort to write a Ruby implementation in Rust: https://github.com/artichoke/artichoke

At the moment it wraps the mruby VM, but I think Ryan's plan is to switch to the CRuby YARV VM and then replace it with a VM written in Rust.

I'm also working on a CRuby JIT compiler written in Rust using CraneLift (a new compiler written in Rust).