From High-Level to Systems Programming: A Practical Guide to Rust by Ben Greenberg

Learn the fundamentals of Rust programming through a practical guide, covering essential concepts like ownership, generics, and typing, as well as tools like the Rust compiler, Cargo, and Rustlings.

Key takeaways
  • Ownership is a crucial concept in Rust, where variables have a lifetime and a scope, and ownership is transferred through function calls and returns.
  • Generics allow for reusable and flexible code by specifying type parameters, and Rust provides a lot of support for generics through its type system.
  • The Rust compiler is a powerful tool that provides immediate feedback on errors and warnings, making it a valuable asset for developers.
  • The cargo build tool is a package manager that simplifies the development process and helps with dependency management.
  • Macros are a feature in Rust that allow for declarative programming, making it possible to write code that is concise and expressive.
  • Rustlings is a program that helps learn Rust through a series of challenges and exercises.
  • The Rust book is a comprehensive resource for learning Rust, with a free version available from Brown University.
  • Cargo check can be used to get immediate feedback on errors and warnings without building the project, making it a useful tool for developers.
  • Static typing is a key feature of Rust that provides guarantees about the type safety of the code.
  • Dynamically typed languages such as Python and Ruby can be compared to Pac-Man, where the data is the ball that can be eaten and dealt with unpredictably.
  • SDKs (Software Development Kits) are packages that provide APIs and libraries for building applications, and Rust has many actively maintained libraries and tools for these.
  • rust-book.cs.brown.edu is a fantastic resource for learning Rust, with a free version available and many formats for reading.
  • T is a type parameter in Rust that is used to specify the types of generic functions and types.
  • cargo new is a command that creates a new Rust package, which can include packages and dependencies.
  • Iterables are a concept in Rust that provide a way to iterate over data structures such as arrays and vectors.
  • ruby and python are languages that have their own unique syntax and concepts, but can be compared to Rust.
  • Sorbet is a type checker for Python that provides type information and guarantees about the type safety of the code.