Day 1: Hello Rust World


So I’ve been programming for a while, I started with Basic, then C/C++ on to Java/Groovy, ABAP, Python then now JavaScript. I learned something new with each new language and I wanted to keep that going.
Recently I gave a talk about JavaScript build tools and talked about why some of those are switching over to rust. When I gave that talk I knew absolutely nothing about the Rust programming language, but during research, I really got interested in Rust and decided to learn it.

So to keep myself accountable and as a form of note-taking, I’ll blog about what I learn here.

Now I’d love to say this will be daily but let’s be honest, I have a day job, a 5-year-old, and a life so more likely it will be weekly.

Let’s dive in.

Rust Programming Language Logo
By Rust Foundation, CC BY 4.0

First Thoughts

Installation was painless, but I’m on Linux, so nothing weird there. I just ran

$ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | shCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

And that was it.

The hello world program

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}
Code language: Rust (rust)

So I’m guessing the fn is the rust equivalent of js’s function. The println is nostalgic from my c/c++ days but what’s up with that that exclamation mark(!)

Programs start from main, c++ again, and are compiled. It’s going to be weird since for the last few years I haven’t been compiling programs.

But whatever, moving on…

It also turns out we have a code formatter, rustfmt. This is awesome because ESLint and StandardJs left their mark on me.

I usually don’t use semi-colons in JavaScript, thanks StandardJs, but they are required now. Apparently, they can be omitted in some instances but we’ll get to that another time I hope. I also found out the meaning of the ! at the end of the function, another thing that may need its own article.

Finally today I learned the word Rustacean. Apparently, it’s a person who uses, contributes to, or is interested in the development of Rust. So since I wrote “hello world” apparently I’m now a Rustacean, lol.

That was day one, nothing happened. Are you a Rustacean? Say hi on Twitter @phoexer, and happy coding.


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