by dijksterhuis | 2025-05-06 16:10:57+00:00
> I've gone through so many resources (including the book) and I never managed to finish any of them. But I think now I need to get comfortable with having gaps and just start writing code and not be afraid of writing non-idiomatic rust code, atleast for now.

i was in the same boat. i’d probably gone through the first half of the rust book and made actual hand written notes several times over the last 5 years. started rustlings. started “100 exercises in rust” (can’t remember actual title). never finished them. never felt like i was going to be “ready” to handle rust.

6-9 months ago i had the time to start learning a new language. was between rust or go. decided on rust. avoided it for a month. recently released my first library crate (with another on the way).

my tips/experience

- don’t worry about the borrow checker to start, just be aware it’s a thing. clone() everything if you need to. i had to just get comfortable writing rust code first. “i wrote some rust” was the goal each day. just working on getting it to compile somehow was all that mattered. confidence building is a thing.

- i started with simple CLI binary doing stuff like “package the files in these directories as a release/dev build setup”. basically copy paste /symlink files with clap. simple but useful [0]

- start with an ide that hooks into the compiler and shows you errors. ideally one like theia or rust rover which shows you the documentation of the error when you hover over it. i’ve now switched to nano and compiling manually after like 7 months. i see fewer errors these days and usually i expect some of them.

- keep it simple. don’t worry about being idiomatic. it will come as you read other people’s libraries and code over time. i’m still not there yet.

- if you are really struggling with the compiler just wont let me do this one bloody thing why won’t you let me do it it’s so simple in language X —> you are either fighting against the type system or the borrow checker. pause. take a moment. figure out which. it’s time to figure out what you’re not understanding. accept that you might have to completely change the approach of what you were doing. it’s okay, it’s part of learning.

- i would read all the outputs of `cargo clippy` and change each one by hand. i don’t use `cargo clippy —fix` ever. repetition helps me learn. doing enough boring repetition forced me to remember basic stuff that makes my code more idiomatic. i cannot emphasise how useful this was to make my code more idiomatic up front.

- commit your changes. then use `cargo fmt` and read through the diffs. again, helps to work out what rust code is supposed to look like while writing it (eventually without needing to use `cargo fmt`). i cheated with formatting compared to clippy (see above). it’s just formatting, you can probably rely on cargo fmt and be lazy tbh.

- you don’t have to start your rust journey with hardcore systems/hardware level coding. i felt like i was cheating / doing it wrong because i wasn’t doing that. but a lot of crates are nothing to do with systems level stuff. just because it’s a systems programming language doesn’t mean you have to be that hardcore to start with. see 2nd bullet point.

- generics might be my favourite thing about rust. realising how they work and how to apply them blew my mind. once i had that ‘mind blown’ moment with something — i was hooked. i don’t wanna go back to python now!

[0]: i need to change perms. apparently i set code viewing to private somehow? wtff. https://gitlab.com/dijksterhuis-arma3/vn-mf-builder