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Smörgåsbord

Preface

I started this language module as a way to keep track of my notes while learning Rust. As I progressed I found myself circling back to clarify concepts I thought I understood and add elements I didn’t pick up initially. As a result, my notes have evolved into a much larger project that sits somewhere between a narrative-based reference and a way to practice my letters.

I started writing this for me and unless I’m given reason to change course I am still my target audience. That is to say that this material is written by a novice autodidact, and written for someone at a similar place in their programming journey. The content assumes some familiarity with basic programming concepts so if you’ve never written a line of code you may find yourself playing a bit of catch up.

One of the biggest challenges in organizing this material is that many of the concepts are circularly dependent. This makes presenting a linear, progressive disclosure of discrete topics incredibly difficult. On a conceptual level this language module breaks the material into the following top-level categories:

  • Introduction
  • The Type System
  • Data & Memory Management
  • Project Design & Development
  • Cookbook

Each of the categories contain a set of sub-topics that cover progressively more complex or interdependent concepts. The result is that covering the material categorically may present the reader with frustrating gaps. To provide some semblance of linear progression to an otherwise circular knowledge dependency I propose the following pedagogical sequence. Writing non-trivial applications and structures likely requires some knowledge of all of the topics covered here save perhaps the cookbook. So put a kettle on, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy.