Preface

When I first made the effort of learning one programming language a year, I started with Ruby, then learned a bit of Scala, until, in 2015, I started with a very new language: Rust. My first attempts at creating a Slack (a team chat program) bot were somewhat successful but very frustrating. Being used to Python's flexibility with JSON data and permissive compiler, Rust's steep learning curve quickly took its toll.

The next projects were more successful. A database driver, as well as my very own Internet of Things (IoT)-type client and server application for the Raspberry Pi, allowed me to collect temperature data in a rock-solid manner. Unlike Python, if the program compiled, it would almost certainly work as expected—and I loved it.

Since then, a lot has changed. Big companies such as Microsoft and Amazon are picking up Rust as a way to create safe and fast code on embedded devices as well as in the cloud. With WebAssembly (Wasm), Rust is gaining traction in the web frontend space, and gaming companies are starting to build game engines in Rust. 2018 has been a great year for the technology and the Rust community, both of which will continue to grow in 2019 (and beyond).

For this reason, I hope to provide a learning resource for creating more sophisticated Rust code from a practical angle. Wherever your journey leads you, learning about Rust and its various programming models will change your view of code for the better.