> I have the same problem with strings as well. I think I understand the difference between String and &str but I wish it’d automatically convert String into &str when a function expects it.

Yep! My understanding is that `AsRef<str>` is the right way to do this automatic conversion but I learned that by reading library code, not from the standard documentation. It'd be awfully nice if the compiler could do those sorts of conversions automatically; injecting `AsRef` everywhere adds a lot of visual clutter.