Rust 365 Challenge: Progress Report
The thirteenth I missed - but that’s why I’m gauging success by week
I decided I’m going to make a few progress report posts for the ‘How much did I learn in this 365 Challenge?’. TL;DR: It’s definitely working.
This is Changing How I Program
I don’t want to make any exorbitant claims about Rust, but I will say that learning it has given me an ability that I didn’t have before. And that ability is to focus more on ‘What does the compiler encourage?’. A thing of beauty about Programming is that it’s both work and an outlet for creative thinking + expression. It’s a perfect match for my personality, and I love that about it.
I think in the past, I have learned a way to ‘get things done’, and put that strategy into my tool cabinet without much consideration to the quality of the tool. Or, more to the point, if that tool worked with the system it was apart of, rather than against it.
Best Practices is kind of an annoying term sometimes, but I think I’ve truly started to change how I perceive the intent of the language, vs. ‘what it’s capable of’. The distinction may not be clear, honestly I’m still working it out myself. But I do know that I think much more now about “What does the compiler want me to do?“ instead of "What do I want to do?”.
This works for the Angular Compiler, as well as the JS Interpreter. Thinking about what they want has changed how I think about what I’m writing.
I’m comfortable in Rust now
It took almost a full 2 months (I started before Jan. 1) of near-daily programming, and definitely more than 100 minutes per week. But I enjoy reading and writing Rust now. It’s not quite as natural as TypeScript or C# for me yet, but the gap is closing. I do not yet find myself wishing I was using Rust as my professional work platform though.
I’m primarily working on web-dev stuff right now and I’m still completely fine using Angular and TypeScript to pay the bills.
I learned about Excalidraw
And that it integrates with the Obsidian note-taking app! That on its own is worth every single day of the effort as these two things are just so pleasing. Makes it so much easier to manage my own thoughts, schedule, and ideas.
Still Excited about what is to come
I’ve never stuck out a full 365 Challenge before. I always stop around 90 days. I am hoping I can motivate myself to continue on with this, especially because I do believe that I’m still in the early part of the curve, where now that Rust is making sense to me, I’ll be in a position to understand more about all of its various components since I’ve got a reasonable foundation beneath me.
