A presentation at THAT Conference, WI 2023 in in Wisconsin Dells, WI, USA by Ben Greenberg
From High-Level to Systems Programming: A Practical Guide to Rust
Maybe your language of choice is…
Maybe your language of choice is…
Maybe your language of choice is…
And now you want to learn Rust How do you start?
My journey to Rust started with…
My months leading up to the Academy…
How will you start?
1 2 Getting Started Rust Syntax 3 4 Ownership Generics
Getting Started
Major Differences
JavaScript Python Ruby ● Interpreted ● Dynamic typing ● Garbage collected ● Interpreted ● Dynamic typing ● Garbage collected ● Interpreted ● Dynamic typing ● Garbage collected
Rust ● Compiled ● Static typing ● Manual memory management
Developer Ecosystem
“Rust is on its seventh year as the most loved language with 87% of developers saying they want to continue using it.”
To name a few… Web development: Actix, Rocket, Tide Async programming: Tokio, async-std Growing ecosystem of libraries and tools Serialization: Serde Blockchain: Substrate, ink! Database ORMs: Diesel, sqlx, Cryptography and security: scale, ring, rustls GUI development: druid, iced Game development: Amethyst, Bevy, ggez
Cargo: Package Manager and build tool crates.io: Package registry
That’s different than Rubygems 🤔
Syntax
A Quick Look
Type System
Memory and Ownership
Memory Management
JavaScript relies on garbage collection to free memory from previous large arrays, which may introduce performance overhead. Rust deallocates memory as soon as it’s no longer needed, providing efficient and deterministic memory management.
Ownership
Once Pac-man (i.e. Rust) consumes (i.e. owns) the ball, it’s no longer available
Generics
What are generics?
Generics allow writing flexible, reusable, and type-safe code without specifying concrete data types
Create functions, structs, enums, and traits that work with multiple data types
Why use generics?
Generics provide a way to achieve flexibility similar to dynamically typed languages while maintaining type safety benefits of static typing
Generics Syntax
It’s Reusable!
Continue Your Learning
Maybe you heard about the Rust book before…
Have you heard about the Brown University version?
https://rust-book.cs.brown.edu/
Rustlings github.com/rust-lang/rustlings
Intro to Rust Course
https://w3f.github.io/w3f-education/docs/introrust
Streaming every week!
Learning Rust from isn’t always easy
But, with the right resources and community it is possible!
Let’s keep learning Rust together!
Are you a high-level developer looking to expand your skillset and learn a new language? Rust is a systems programming language that is gaining popularity for its safety features and high performance. In this session, we will cover the basics of Rust syntax and semantics, and explore how to apply Rust’s unique approaches to memory management and concurrency to solve real-world problems. With a focus on hands-on examples and exercises, this session is suitable for developers with experience in high-level programming languages who are looking to dive into the world of systems programming. By the end of this session, you will have a solid foundation in Rust and the skills to start building your own high-performance and secure systems.
for free. You
can too.