Hello fellow rust enthusiasts,
I started writing code in Rust almost a year ago, just as a hobby. Since I did not had the time and application to start more ambitious projects I stayed on a very basic level of understanding of the language and its nature. Last year I paricipated in a programming competition in Germany for pupils and apprentice, using Rust. That worked out quite well (although I don not know wether the code was really "good", it worked here is the code just in case you are interested). It really was fun and I felt how I got more comfortable thinking in Rust. But the individual tasks were rather small, so that I never had to think about strukture, threading and basically everythink you would consider in larger projects. Since then I have not wrote any code in Rust.
Fast forward to this year. In school we have to write an simulation programm and I decided that I want to do that in Rust, figuring this is a great oportunity the learn to better learn the language and stick to the project, since there is a deadline and a not unsigificant mark. To the simulation: Being an enthusiastic DiscGolf player I decided that I will build a discgolf tournament simulation. A bunch of players will be grouped together, throwing their discs and based their skill level, weather conditions and disk stats their attempts will be more or less successful. A couple months ago I discovered tui-rs, this will be my "UI". So much for planning.
Now that it is time for coding I realized that I absolutely do not know where to start. I am feeling like in art class sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper, to hesitating to make my first strokes fearing that I will make critical mistaked haunting me in the end. For example:
- How do I structure my project? I need a binary, but is it useful to use a lib inside too?
- All those Rust things like lifetimes and borring...I understand them, but not to that point that I could use them correctly in my own code.
I am feeling like the list can go on for much longer. I have to admit that this sounds like I did not understand Rust then, or programming at all and indeed, I started programming three years ago and I am "just" an apprentice. But worked through all the basic guides and made the beginnings of a breakout clone with the amethyst game engine.
So after that introduction my call for help. Do you have any advice going forward. What things I do not have to care about at the start? Are these people having some time to "coach" me? Or are there articles or such I did not discover yet.
Thank you for your time reading my complaints. I do really enjoy writing Rust and exited to tackle more advanced topics in this evironment.
Hope you all stay safe.