# Garbage Collection Makes Rust Easier to Use: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Bronze Garbage Collector

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.01098 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.01098/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Oct 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Evaluating and Improving Automated Repository-Level Rust Issue Resolution with LLM-based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22764/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Rust is a general-purpose programming language that is both type- and memory-safe. Rust does not use a garbage collector, but rather achieves these properties through a sophisticated, but complex, type system. Doing so makes Rust very efficient, but makes Rust relatively hard to learn and use. We designed Bronze, an optional, library-based garbage collector for Rust. To see whether Bronze could make Rust more usable, we conducted a randomized controlled trial with volunteers from a 633-person class, collecting data from 428 students in total. We found that for a task that required managing complex aliasing, Bronze users were more likely to complete the task in the time available, and those who did so required only about a third as much time (4 hours vs. 12 hours). We found no significant difference in total time, even though Bronze users re-did the task without Bronze afterward. Surveys indicated that ownership, borrowing, and lifetimes were primary causes of the challenges that users faced when using Rust.