Rust Journal [0]

#rust #beginners #devjournal

Today marks the first time ever I have written a Rust code. I have followed “the book”, the official handbook for the Rust language (here it is) , and have written two programs: Hello world and Guess the Number Game.

How have I learned about Rust. I’m actually a web developer and I usually work with JavaScript or TypeScript on front-end. So I develop web UI. I have no CS degree and all the official education in CS I have constists of what they have thought me in high school, which wasn’t much since it was only an electrical engineering school. I’m from Europe and high schools work quite different from those in US here, the high schools here center around a certain goal: e.g. go to University, professional aim etc. I have learned web development on my own and felt pretty acomplished when I’ve succesfully started a career in programming.

Nevertheless I’m at the point now where I feel like what I’m doing isn’t enough. I’m not really sure what I want but I feel like I should try to make something different than another web app or website. So I have investigated what other languages or technologies I might be interested in. And suddenly my favourite YT channel, which focuses on 100 second long (more like 100 sec short) videos explaining various programming topics, published a video about the Rust programming language. And I felt like - wow this is it.

What is it actually that got me so much interested in the language on the first brief sight? I have no idea. But I know that I want to understand it and that’s the only driving force necessary for starting a new learning journey.

So it begins. And I wonder where will this journey get me.

Learning in public

I’m planning on trying the technique of learning in public. Many people online recommend doing it. It supposedely should make me not quit and by trying to explain things make myself understand them better. The second thing I know for sure works because I have worked as a language teacher before, the first thing... we will see. Anyway if you want to follow my journey, I’ll be posting updates here and later on my personal website (that one is under reconstruction at the moment so I’ll share it with you when it’s done).

Goals

I believe that I should have a certain goal or goals in front of me so that I know how far I’m in the progress and what lies in front of me. I’ll try to make up a few points that I feel like are acomplishable in the near future.

[ ] learn the basic syntax
- quite self-explenatory I believe
[ ] make a simple CLI program
- I’ve got the recommendation from another YT person that CLI is a good starting point and I could actually make something really useful to me right from the beginning
- I’m thinking of currency rate calculater or something of that sort
[ ] learn about connecting to the web
- I want to know, eventualy, how to make a REST api, because that’s again something I could really use, e.g. creating a backend for my personal website
[ ] make a simple REST api
- by simple I mean one endpoint or something like that
- maybe I could make the CLI program I would have done by this time accesible on the www
[ ] make new goals
- I know already that it would take me at least a few months before I get here, so nothing further needs to be planned, when I get here I’ll figure out some proper project

Conclusion

I have started to learn a new programming lanaguage. I hope it will be a lot of fun and I’ll get to create amazing things with it and I want to try to do it in public. If you feel like you wanted to start something new lately, join me and learn with me. We can move each other forward.

The book: https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/

The 100 sec channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Fireship

The Let’s get rusty channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSp-OaMpsO8K0KkOqyBl7_w

My GitHub where I’ll store my Rust projects: https://github.com/JakubStiburek