The document discusses choosing Rust over NodeJS for software development. It provides an overview of the speaker's background and experience with Rust. Some key differences between NodeJS and Rust mentioned are that Rust has no need for TypeScript or additional tooling, ships binaries, and allows for more performant code through compiler checks. The document also outlines steps for getting started with Rust, including recommended books and practice projects. Popular Rust libraries for web development are also listed.

1. From NodeJS to Rust
The Whys and Hows

2. About me
● Bastian Gruber
● Developing Software for about
10 years
● Mainframe (PL/I), Java,
Angular/React, Python, NodeJS,
Rust (Go, Lua, C#...)
● Writing paid, production-ready
Rust for about 10 months
● Pragmatic :)
gruberbastian.com
gruberbastian@me.com

3. Talk goals
● Why choosing Rust
● Core differences between
NodeJS and Rust
● What to learn in the beginning
● Quick start into web dev
● Learning path
● What to do with Rust
● Real-life experiences using Rust
in production

4. WHY?
● New markets need different
systems/languages
● More fields to work in
● New mindset instead of just a
new Syntax
● Grow as a professionalPERSONAL

5. WHY?
● No need for TypeScript
● No need for third-party tooling*
● Shipping a binary
● People can get on boarded
with a book
● High quality content (blog
posts, books, code)
● More performant
● Pair programming with the
compiler
● ….
NODEJS

6. NodeJS vs. Rust

7. ● cargo new PROJECT
● Adding dependencies by hand*
● crates.io
● Cargo.toml
● cargo run
● cargo check
● cargo build
● cargo test
● Doc-comments with tested code-
examples (always up-to-date)
● RICH language features
● Be able to run as a static binary
NodeJS vs. Rust
● mkdir PROJECT && cd && npm init
● npm install
● npm
● Package.json
● npm run
EXTRA TOOLING NEEDED FOR TYPES,
TESTING AND BUNDLING

8. Befriend the compiler
Reading documentation
Types
No “undefined”
Mindset: Systems Programming Language (no runtime)
Mindset

9. Web Development with Rust

10. Futures and Runtimes

11. Runtimes
● Instead of using the OS threads, a runtime is creating its own “event loop”
● Futures are getting passed onto the runtime
● Runtime drives the Futures to a conclusion
● Application is getting notified that a return value is available
● Tokio
● Async-std
● ….

12. Runtimes (tokio)

13. Web Dev Stack

14. Crates for Web Development
● TCP included in Rust
● Tokio-stack:
○ hyper (HTTP implementation/server)
○ tonic (GRPC)
○ warp (web-server framework)
● Actix-web
● rocket
● serde(_json)
● reqwest

15. Rocket

16. actix-web

17. warp

18. reqwest

19. Rust example
Live coding (fetching something form an open api, using first no type to print out
the result, and then creating a type, using serde_json etc.)

20. What to build with Rust?
!!EVERYTHING!!

21. What to build with Rust?
● Web Applications
● APIs
● Servers
● Databases
● Operating Systems
● Games
● Software for embedded devices
● …..

22. Rust learning path
To buy
● “The Rust Programming Language” (NoStarch)
● “Programming Rust” (o’reilly)
● “Rust in Action” (MEAP)
Signup
● exercism.io
● Rust Discord
● Rust MeetUps
○ “Rust Hack and Learn”
○ “Rust and Tell”

23. Rust learning path
Practice path I
● Read first 2 chapters of “TRPL”
● Do 4-5 easy exercism.io exercises
● Build a CLI application and use docs and TRPL
● Do one exercism.io exercise every day + use “Programming
Rust” and docs as reference
● Watch videos from Jon Gjengset
● Read “Rust in Action”
● Build redis-clone

24. Rust learning path
Practice path II
● Read first 2 chapters of “TRPL”
● Do 3 exercism.io exercises a day/for a month (+
books/docs)
● Start to build a web service and use docs/books to help

25. Real world experiences with Rust
+ Be able to change code everywhere and anytime (thanks compiler)
+ Be able to strongly type your codebase (refactoring, reasoning)
+ Compiler, crates, docs,...
+/- Developers from different backgrounds
+/- Don’t want to program in any other language anymore
- Not “easy going” mindset as the NodeJS community/developers (so far)

26. THANK YOU!