Rust

Intermediate

These concepts cover essential Rust features and techniques needed for building more complex applications. They are necessary for writing efficient, maintainable, and robust Rust code in intermediate-level projects.

  1. Advanced Ownership and Borrowing

    • Dive deeper into ownership and borrowing rules, including lifetimes and the use of multiple borrows.

    • Understand how to use lifetimes to manage references and ensure memory safety across function boundaries.

    • Reason: Advanced ownership and borrowing techniques are crucial for building complex, safe Rust applications.

    • Example Task: Implement a function that returns a reference to the longest string from a list, using lifetimes.

  2. Traits and Generics

    • Learn to define and implement traits to specify shared behaviour across different types.

    • Explore the use of generics to write flexible and reusable code that can operate on multiple types.

    • Reason: Traits and generics are key to Rust’s expressive type system, enabling polymorphism and code reuse.

    • Example Task: Create a generic function that finds the largest element in any list of items that implement the PartialOrd trait.

  3. Working with Closures and Iterators

    • Learn to define and use closures, including capturing variables from the environment.

    • Explore iterators, including custom iterator implementations and combinators like map, filter, and fold.

    • Reason: Closures and iterators provide powerful abstractions for working with sequences and applying functional programming concepts.

    • Example Task: Write a closure that filters a list of integers, keeping only even numbers, and return the result as a Vec.

  4. Macros and Code Generation

    • Learn to create and use macros in Rust, including declarative macros with macro_rules! and procedural macros.

    • Explore how to write custom derive macros and use them to generate code based on type definitions.

    • Reason: Macros are a powerful metaprogramming tool in Rust that can reduce boilerplate and enhance code expressiveness.

    • Example Task: Create a custom derive macro that automatically generates a method for serialising a struct into JSON.

  5. Building and Using Libraries

    • Understand how to structure and publish Rust libraries, including managing dependencies and writing documentation.

    • Learn to create and use feature flags and explore best practices for designing reusable and composable libraries.

    • Reason: Building and using libraries effectively is essential for contributing to and leveraging Rust's ecosystem.

    • Example Task: Develop a Rust library with modular components, publish it to crates.io, and implement comprehensive documentation and tests.

  6. File I/O and Working with the Filesystem

    • Learn to perform file input/output operations using Rust’s standard library, including reading, writing, and managing files.

    • Explore techniques for handling large files, streaming data, and working with directories.

    • Reason: File I/O is a common requirement in many applications, and understanding how to do it efficiently in Rust is crucial.

    • Example Task: Write a program that reads a large file line by line and counts the number of occurrences of a specific word. Create a cli tool that performs a simple task of reading and writing from/to file.