Diary of a 1X Rust Noob
I consider myself to be an average programmer (1X), and I recently started learning Rust (Noob). I follow programmers online who are much better at programming than me and I don't think it is an overstatement to say that they are 10X through a combination of knowledge, skill and speed. If you are a 2Xer+ and have come here by mistake, try here and here instead. As a 1Xer I'll never match 10Xer speed and breadth of knowledge, but I can set their depth of knowledge and skill as an aspirational goal. One way I can do that is by building on a firm foundation and starting with at least a basic understanding or awareness of fundamental computing topics.
Things like:
- Binary representation of native types
- Memory management / virtual memory
- CPU Cache
- Multi-threading
- Process management / scheduling
- Assembly language
- Algorithms and data structures
You don't need to be able to do impromptu leetcode problem solving, just be aware of the possible approaches to a solution so you know where to look to refresh your memory or research further.
Another way to improve is to choose the best tools for the job, tools where a knowledge of the fundamentals is encouraged and not abstracted away. Now this subject is fraught with danger (tool and language wars 💥), but I really believe that Rust is such a tool.
But should a 1X programmer even be trying to learn Rust? Rust is a systems programming language that has a reputation for being difficult to learn. Certainly there is a lot to learn in the Rust world, but also you can get most of the benefit and enjoyment of Rust with just a small amount of the learning journey completed. I believe that is well within the grasp of us 1Xers and can make us better programmers, so long as we embrace the fundamentals and the very good reasons for the way Rust is designed.
So why do I want to learn Rust and why should you learn it?
Here are a few reasons:
- It is fast, on par with C and sanely written (🙂) C++
- It is safe, preventing many memory errors, type errors, race conditions etc.
- It has cool modern features like closures, iterators, destructuring and elegant error handling
- It has a great static type system and standard library
- It has an awesome community and user forum
- It has terrific tutorials and documentation (std, ref etc.)
- It will make you a better programmer [citation needed]
- I love using it (vibes > data)
Now look, Rust isn't perfect, and I've had my fair share of wtf! moments, (plenty of which were me being dumb tbh), but the sheer amount of goodness in Rust allows you to soon forget about such things.
So far I have only used Rust to make some CLI utilities, and it is great for that. So even if I never have to write low level systems code or a complex framework or API, it is still good to know that Rust has got my back if I need to.
This diary will be a series of YouTube videos with the following goals:
- Fill in some 1X holes left by the 10X authors of the Rust Book and Reference
- Show you that although Rust is a systems programming language, it is great for high level applications, script-like tasks, CLI utilities etc.
That's enough talk, lets get started!
