A few days ago, I was joking in the group about how difficult it is to get started with Rust, when a friend said, “Rust is the Genshin Impact of the programming world.” I thought to myself, even though Rust has been praised and criticized excessively over the past two years, it shouldn’t be blackened to this extent (Genshin Impact: Aren’t I also in this situation?).
In fact, the most similar aspect between Rust and Genshin Impact is that some irrational remarks from community members have led to the division of people into three categories: those who praise it, those who criticize it, and those who actually use it:
The first group is the proponents: They will tell you that Rust is the best language in the world, that C/C++ are outdated relics, that Rust has made programming leap forward, and that good programmers should aspire to the rigor of Rust.
This group mostly consists of people who have only scratched the surface of Rust and have only created small-scale programs. Naturally, the increase in this group has led to the emergence of the second group.
The second group is the anti-Rust faction: Their existence is largely due to the first group; they start to mock Rust when they see it being praised. Their disdain gradually shifts from people to Rust itself. This group has no intention of using Rust at all.
The third group consists of people who understand and try to use Rust: They discover during their exploration of Rust that it is indeed quite cumbersome and has a steep learning curve, but its design is also quite scientific and standardized, with no garbage collection and no need for manual memory management. They may have tried using Rust to solve daily work problems or done some lower-level development with Rust.
Only a small portion of this group will advocate for Rust online while using it to solve daily work issues, and they are often misunderstood by the second group as being part of the first group.
Most engineers’ first impression of Rust is that “it’s too difficult,” with a steep learning curve. In the beginning, they need to constantly battle with the compiler, and only through a difficult transition in thinking can they gradually appreciate the design charm of Rust:
Chen Tian – “The Path to Mastering Rust”
To master Rust, you need to deeply understand concepts like memory, stack, references, and variable scope, which are often not covered in depth by other high-level languages. Regardless of whether you will use Rust in the future, the process of learning Rust can make you a better programmer. Moreover, the difficulty of the language has its advantages; once mastered, you will possess strong irreplaceability and will no longer just be a simple tool user.
As for the future of Rust, you don’t need to worry. Many well-known internet and tech companies both domestically and internationally are adopting Rust to restructure their tech stacks, such as Byte’s Feishu and Google’s Fuchsia. Rust positions are increasing year by year, and many big companies are subtly requiring candidates to know how to program in Rust during interviews.
Speaking of which, everyone might feel it’s time to recommend some Rust learning materials. Honestly, whether for enhancing your irreplaceability or preparing for future employment, I recommend everyone to learn Rust.
Currently, there aren’t many Chinese resources on Rust that are suitable for beginners or systematic. Later, I saw a Rust expert named “Chen Tian” on Zhihu who shared many insights on the difficulties of getting started with Rust, explained very clearly.
Later, I saw he wrote a column on Geek Time called Chen Tian · Rust Programming First Lesson, which has already been learned by over 20,000 friends. Borrowing a comment from a friend in the course’s comment section, his column not only showcases the real-world development methods of Rust projects but also shares many personal project experiences, and I believe you will gain insights beyond just Rust:
The entire column combines Chen Tian’s 20 years of deep experience with various languages, guiding you through the 10 major difficulties of Rust programming from shallow to deep, with over 100 principle diagrams explaining the design philosophy of Rust in detail. Finally, through 4 practical projects, it combines theory and practice to truly help you master the essence of Rust development.
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Currently the Senior Vice President of R&D at TubiTV, the largest free streaming service in North America.
He is a model of a Chinese engineer in Silicon Valley, hardworking and persevering. In my eyes, he is a humble and courteous evangelist, sharing generously every time.
He has always advocated “solving the right problem with the right tool“, so when faced with different work demands, he insists on deeply using development languages that are vastly different in form and mechanism:
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Used C and assembly to create various network protocols;
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Used Python/Javascript to write TuKe Circle;
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Used Node.js/Elixir to build the high-concurrency backend core of TubiTV;
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Used Elixir to create the blockchain framework Forge;
He has also researched languages like Haskell/F#, Clojure/Racket, Swift, Golang, and C#.
It can be said that he is well-versed in various languages, and it is rare for someone with such qualifications to come out and teach, sharing his unique Rust learning methods and experiences.
“Chen Tian · Rust Programming First Lesson” consists of 64 sessions. Following along, the biggest impression is that this teacher is very good at explaining; everyone knows that Rust is difficult to learn and hard to explain thoroughly, but Chen Tian can make it easy to understand, clear, and his narrative presents his way of thinking and problem-solving methods, attracting me to dig deeper.
Shouldering the mission of “Rust First Lesson”, Chen Tian explains in an easy-to-understand manner, comparing various knowledge points to different languages, designing many small and beautiful example codes, analyzing the source code of the Rust standard library, and carefully drawing a large number of principle diagrams.
Each session follows the idea of “surface knowledge → source code interpretation → underlying design“, striving to help you understand the design logic behind Rust’s many concepts.
What is learned from books is always superficial; to truly understand, one must practice. For a brand new language like Rust, focus + practice + application is the best learning method!
Therefore, every module of the column is designed with practical content, guiding you to apply Rust in production environments and to solve real-world problems with Rust. The teacher’s way of thinking and problem-solving methods are shared without reservation, worth revisiting and understanding repeatedly.
As shown in the diagram, one phase of practical operation:
Each chapter will leave a thought-provoking question related to the content, and the teacher spends just as much time answering questions as polishing the main text.
Moreover, questions that are not thoroughly understood in the course can be found answered by Chen Tian in the comments section. This has helped many people, and I’ve captured some evaluations for your reference.
When it first launched, there were 40 sessions; the teacher expanded the content while writing, and by the end, there were already 64 sessions! This pure spirit of sharing is also very heartfelt. To emphasize the content, let’s take a look at the directory:
Let me emphasize again
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Click “Read the Original“, and this time, successfully get started with Rust!