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Comment by b0rsuk | Hacker News Reader

> I’ve written a few hundred lines of Rust over the last 4 years, but I’m honestly still pretty bad at Rust and so my goal is to learn enough that I don’t get confused while writing very simple programs.

This makes me feel hopeless, as I'm only about to start using Rust in my hobby projects after reading the essential book chapters. I hope it's just excessive humility on her part ? At the same time, I'm excited because if I commit myself to mastering such a language it can make me stand out. I still have an opportunity to be an early adopter, and have a head start in a promising new language.

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A few hundred lines of the course of four years would imply that the author is idly dabbling with Rust rather than using it in anger. (It also implies that she's been using Rust since before its 1.0 release, which would probably make it harder to get a handle on modern Rust, as it changed significantly back then.) Trust me, it won't take you anywhere close to four years to get proficient in Rust. :)

> This makes me feel hopeless, as I'm only about to start using Rust in my hobby projects after reading the essential book chapters.

The operative term there being "a few hundred lines", not "4 years".

A few hundred lines is hardly a couple of hours work.

This means she's written bits of Rust on and off over the course of four years and never sat down with it, basically.

Nothing to worry about.

The IRC channel and the r/rust subreddit are all very helpful for new rustaceans who get stuck, so don't hesitate to reach out.

don't forget stackoverflow ! It doesn't have all the answers easy to google, but /u/shepmaster is doing an amazing job as a curator here. You usually get an answer in less than half an hour (assuming he's awake, but I'm not even sure he sleeps :p)

Really just this year is the first time i've been using it for larger side projects. While I still run into some things with the borrow checker, I find I'm much better at predicting them, and figuring out a strategy around it. Really once you get through the book and are comfortable with types, you really just need to start working on something bigger. You will need to change things and refactor as your original ideas don't pan out. But you learn from it.

Good luck!

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