As far as fixing lifetime errors is concerned, I would recommend breaking your code down into a simpler form so that you can look at the lifetimes from a broader perspective. If you have a simple test case that mimics the same error that your main program has and you still can't solve it, you can simply make a gist for it and ask on the IRC and they usually are able to point out the error. In my experience with lifetime errors, doing it in this method sometimes reveals the simple error I was over looking, or in other cases after asking on IRC I learn something new about lifetimes.

I wrote this too: http://words.steveklabnik.com/pointers-in-rust-a-guide

To be sure I think the most similar language to rust would be probably c++. At least I get a distinct "created by c++ developers" whenever I use it.

Not that that is a bad thing, just that if you've programmed in almost any imperative language you're fine reading that online book. I'd love to use rust to replace my C stuff in the future if possible once it stabilizes. But until then I am just popping back to that book every other even .N release to have a look-see at progress.