Comprehensive Rust Programming Course

Introduction to Rust

Program Intro and Rust Installation

• Overview of Rust programming language and its philosophy
• Rust's origins and design principles (safety, concurrency, performance)
• Setting up the Rust development environment
  • Installing Rust using rustup
  • Understanding the Rust toolchain (stable, beta, nightly)
  • Configuring Cargo and its workspace
  • Installing essential tools (rustfmt, clippy)
• First "Hello World" program with Cargo
• Understanding Rust's compilation process and the borrow checker

Variables and Ownership

• Variable declaration and initialization
• The let keyword and immutability by default
• Mutability with mut
• Variable shadowing
• Constants and statics
• Scope and the Stack
• Ownership principles
• Move semantics
• Copying vs. moving data
• The Copy trait

Data Types and Type System

• Scalar types (integers, floating-point, boolean, characters)
• Compound types (tuples, arrays)
• String and string slices (String vs &str)
• Type annotations and inference
• Type aliases
• Never type (!)
• Unit type (())
• The std::mem::size_of function

Borrowing and References

• Reference basics (& and &mut)
• Borrowing rules (shared XOR mutable)
• Reference lifetimes
• Dangling references and how Rust prevents them
• Slices as references
• Dereferencing with the * operator
• The dot operator and automatic dereferencing

Control Flow

• Conditional expressions (if, else)
• Loops (loop, while, for)
• Loop labels and control flow (break, continue)
• Match expressions and pattern matching
• if let and while let constructs
• Expression-based language characteristics

Functions and Methods

• Function declaration and parameters
• Return values and the implicit return
• Early returns with return
• Functions as first-class citizens
• Closures and their environment
• Method syntax and implementation
• Associated functions

Structs, Enums, and Pattern Matching

• Struct definition and instantiation
• Tuple structs and unit structs
• Struct update syntax
• Enum definition and variants
• Enums with data
• The Option<T> and Result<T, E> enums
• Pattern matching with match
• Match guards
• Binding with @ in patterns

Collections

• Vectors (Vec<T>)
• HashMaps and other map types
• Sets and their operations
• Deques and other collections
• Common methods and operations
• Iterating over collections
• Performance characteristics
• Choosing the right collection

Error Handling

• Result<T, E> and Option<T> types
• The ? operator
• Propagating errors
• Creating custom error types
• Error conversion and the From trait
• Managing multiple error types
• Panic and when to use it
• Unwrapping safely

Traits and Generics

• Trait definitions
• Implementing traits
• Default implementations
• Trait bounds
• The impl Trait syntax
• Generic functions and types
• Monomorphization
• Associated types
• Object safety and trait objects
• Marker traits

Lifetimes

• Lifetime annotations
• Lifetime elision rules
• Multiple lifetime parameters
• Lifetime bounds
• Static lifetime
• Lifetime in struct definitions
• Lifetime in function signatures
• Lifetime in trait objects

Smart Pointers and Interior Mutability

• Box<T> for heap allocation
• Rc<T> for shared ownership
• Arc<T> for thread-safe reference counting
• Cell<T> and RefCell<T> for interior mutability
• The Deref and Drop traits
• Implementing custom smart pointers
• Memory leaks and preventing them

Testing in Rust

• Unit tests and the #[test] attribute
• Test organization and the tests module
• Integration tests
• Documentation tests
• Using assert!, assert_eq!, and assert_ne!
• Test fixtures and setup/teardown
• Controlling test execution
• Property-based testing with external crates

Mastering Concurrency in Rust

Concurrency Fundamentals

• Understanding concurrency vs. parallelism
• Rust's concurrency guarantees
• Thread safety through the type system
• The Send and Sync traits
• Fearless concurrency in Rust
• The memory model and happens-before relationships

Threads and Basic Synchronization

• Creating threads with std::thread
• Joining threads
• Thread parking and unparking
• Scoped threads
• Basic synchronization primitives
• Mutex and RwLock
• Condvar for condition variables
• Once and OnceCell/OnceLock

Message Passing with Channels

• Multi-producer, single-consumer channels (mpsc)
• Sender and Receiver
• Synchronous vs. asynchronous channels
• Channel patterns (pipeline, fan-out/fan-in)
• Handling errors in channels
• Select-like functionality with external crates
• Building robust systems with channels

Shared State Concurrency

• Thread-safe shared state patterns
• Atomic types (AtomicBool, AtomicUsize, etc.)
• Memory ordering options
• Lock-free programming basics
• Compare-and-swap operations
• Hazards in concurrent programming
• Tools for detecting concurrency bugs

Async/Await

• Introduction to async/await syntax
• Futures and their execution
• Understanding the async runtime
• Popular async runtimes (Tokio, async-std)
• Async traits and the dynamic dispatch challenge
• The Pin type and pinning
• Building async APIs

Tokio Deep Dive

• Tokio runtime architecture
• Tasks and spawning
• Multi-threaded scheduler
• I/O operations with Tokio
• Tokio synchronization primitives
• Work stealing and scheduler internals
• Instrumenting Tokio applications

Building Concurrent Applications

• Designing concurrent architectures
• Actor model with Actix
• State machine pattern for concurrency
• Resource pooling
• Backpressure mechanisms
• Graceful shutdown of concurrent systems
• Performance analysis and optimization

E-commerce API Backend in Rust

Project Setup and Architecture

• Project structure for maintainability
• Domain-driven design in Rust
• Setting up a web framework (Axum, Actix-web, or Rocket)
• Database connectivity
• Configuration management
• Logging and telemetry
• Error handling strategy

Database Layer and Models

• Database options (PostgreSQL, SQLite)
• ORM vs. query builders (Diesel, SQLx)
• Entity definitions
• Database migrations
• Connection pooling
• Transaction management
• Repository pattern implementation

User Management and Authentication

• User model design
• Password hashing with Argon2
• JWT implementation
• Authentication middleware
• Role-based access control
• Account verification flow
• OAuth integration

Product Catalog API

• Product entity and relationships
• Category management
• Product search and filtering
• Image handling
• Product variants
• Inventory tracking
• Price calculations

Shopping Cart Implementation

• Cart model design
• Session-based vs. persistent carts
• Cart operations (add, update, remove)
• Inventory reservation
• Price calculation including discounts
• Cart expiration and cleanup
• Synchronizing carts between guest and logged-in users

Order Processing

• Order model and workflow
• Order creation from cart
• Order status management
• Payment integration
• Shipping integration
• Order confirmation
• Order history and tracking

Payment Processing

• Payment provider integration (Stripe)
• Handling payment events
• Payment status tracking
• Refunds and chargebacks
• Payment methods management
• Securing payment information
• Testing payment flows

Testing Strategies

• Unit testing models and services
• Integration testing API endpoints
• Mocking external services
• Testing authentication and authorization
• Test factories and fixtures
• Property-based testing business logic
• Performance testing

API Documentation

• OpenAPI/Swagger integration
• Documentation generation
• Interactive API explorer
• Versioning strategy
• Documentation testing
• Client SDK generation

Deployment and DevOps

• Containerization with Docker
• CI/CD pipeline setup
• Database migrations in production
• Environment management
• Secrets handling
• Monitoring and alerting
• Performance optimization

Building Microservices in Rust

Microservices Architecture

• Benefits and challenges of microservices
• Domain boundaries
• Service granularity
• Communication patterns
• Data consistency patterns
• Service discovery
• API gateway pattern

Inventory Service

• Inventory domain model
• Stock management logic
• Reservation system
• Inventory events
• Stock level notifications
• Inventory reporting
• Inventory APIs

Order Service

• Order processing workflow
• Event-driven architecture
• Saga pattern for distributed transactions
• Order state management
• Order validation rules
• Order API
• Order events

Payment Service

• Payment processing
• Payment provider integration
• Payment state machine
• Retry mechanisms
• Idempotent operations
• Payment authorization flow
• Payment notification handling

Inter-service Communication

• gRPC implementation in Rust
• Protocol Buffers and Tonic
• Event-driven architecture with Kafka
• Request-response vs. event-based communication
• Serialization options (JSON, ProtoBuf, MessagePack)
• Error handling in distributed systems
• Circuit breaking and retries

Service Mesh and Orchestration

• Service registration and discovery
• Load balancing strategies
• Service mesh options
• Kubernetes deployment
• Health checking
• Graceful degradation
• Blue-green deployments

Observability Stack

• Structured logging
• OpenTelemetry integration
• Metrics collection
• Distributed tracing
• Alerting rules
• Dashboard creation
• Performance analysis

Testing Microservices

• Unit testing service components
• Service virtualization
• Contract testing
• End-to-end testing challenges
• Chaos engineering basics
• Performance testing distributed systems
• Testing eventual consistency

Security in Microservices

• Authentication between services
• Authorization and role-based access
• Secret management
• Network security
• HTTPS and TLS configuration
• Security headers
• OWASP security considerations

Advanced Patterns and Practices

• CQRS and event sourcing
• Outbox pattern
• Saga pattern implementations
• Bulkhead pattern
• Sidecar pattern
• API composition
• Data denormalization strategies

Rust for Systems Programming

Memory Management Deep Dive

• Stack vs. heap allocation
• Custom allocators
• Global allocator replacement
• Memory layout and alignment
• Unsafe Rust and raw pointers
• FFI and C interoperability
• Memory mapping and manipulation

Building a Custom Allocator

• Allocator interface
• Block allocation strategies
• Memory pooling
• Tracking allocations
• Thread safety considerations
• Performance optimization
• Integration with standard collections

File Systems and I/O

• File operations in Rust
• Directory traversal
• Memory mapped files
• Asynchronous I/O
• Custom file systems
• Serialization formats for persistence
• Error handling for I/O operations

Network Programming

• Socket programming
• TCP and UDP implementations
• Protocol design
• Async networking with Tokio
• HTTP client and server
• WebSockets
• Custom protocol parsers

Systems Programming Patterns

• Resource acquisition is initialization (RAII)
• Builder pattern
• Command pattern
• Visitor pattern
• State pattern
• Type-state pattern
• Newtype pattern for type safety

Performance Optimization

• Profiling Rust applications
• Compiler optimizations
• SIMD operations with std::simd
• Cache-friendly data structures
• Avoiding allocations
• Benchmarking with criterion
• Performance pitfalls and solutions

Embedded Rust

• No-std environment
• Embedded HAL
• Interfacing with hardware
• Interrupt handling
• Real-time considerations
• Memory constraints
• Debugging embedded systems

How to Land a Job as a Rust Developer

The Rust Job Market

• State of Rust adoption in industry
• Types of companies using Rust
• Common Rust job roles
• Salary expectations
• Remote work opportunities
• Industry trends
• Rust community involvement

Building a Rust Portfolio

• Project selection for maximum impact
• Open source contributions
• Crates you can contribute to
• Documentation improvements
• GitHub profile optimization
• Project README best practices
• Code quality demonstration

Resume and Cover Letter for Rust Jobs

• Highlighting Rust experience
• Transferable skills from other languages
• Showcasing systems programming knowledge
• Focusing on safety and performance aspects
• Emphasizing problem-solving skills
• Keywords for ATS optimization
• Portfolio integration

Technical Interview Preparation

• Common Rust interview questions
• Algorithm implementation in Rust
• Systems design for Rust developers
• Code review exercises
• Take-home project strategies
• Live coding best practices
• Explaining ownership and borrowing

Continuing Education

• Resources for advanced learning
• Rust conferences and meetups
• Mentorship opportunities
• Specialized certifications
• Advanced topics to focus on
• Staying current with ecosystem changes
• Cross-domain expertise development

Blockchain Development in Rust

Cryptography Fundamentals

• Cryptographic primitives in Rust
• Hash functions
• Digital signatures
• Public-key cryptography
• Key derivation
• Zero-knowledge proofs
• Secure random number generation

Basic Blockchain Implementation

• Block structure and chain
• Hash-based proof of work
• Transaction verification
• Simple consensus mechanism
• Data persistence
• Chain validation
• Fork resolution

Smart Contract Platform

• Virtual machine design
• Bytecode interpretation
• Gas metering
• Contract execution environment
• State management
• Contract ABI
• Security considerations

Substrate Framework

• Substrate architecture
• Runtime development
• Pallets and their composition
• Storage and database
• Consensus mechanisms
• Off-chain workers
• Governance mechanisms

Advanced Blockchain Topics

• Sharding implementations
• Layer 2 scaling solutions
• Cross-chain communication
• MEV (Miner Extractable Value)
• Privacy-preserving techniques
• Consensus algorithm design
• Formal verification approaches

Rust Game Development

Game Engine Fundamentals

• Game loop implementation
• Entity component system (ECS)
• Resource management
• Input handling
• Audio systems
• Collision detection
• Physics simulation basics

Graphics Programming with Rust

• Graphics API abstraction (gfx-hal)
• Vulkan/Metal/DirectX integration
• Shader programming
• Rendering pipeline
• Texture management
• Lighting systems
• Post-processing effects

Building a 2D Game

• Sprite rendering
• Animation systems
• Tilemap implementation
• Particle systems
• UI integration
• Game state management
• Scene graph

Game AI and Behavior

• Pathfinding algorithms
• Behavior trees
• State machines
• Decision making
• Procedural generation
• Enemy AI patterns
• Advanced NPC behaviors

Community and Further Learning

RUST COMMUNITY RESOURCES

• Rust users forum
• Reddit communities
• Discord servers
• Local meetups
• Conference opportunities
• Code review groups
• Mentorship programs

CONTINUING EDUCATION

• Advanced resources
• Specialized books
• Video courses
• Challenging projects
• Research papers
• Industry applications
• Certification options