Top resources for learning Rust
Essential books and courses
Here are some of my favourite resources to help you start learning Rust.
🚨 Disclaimer - The best resource is the one that aligns with your learning style and goals. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different options and find what works best for you. Happy learning!
Just choose a resource below and start learning something new today!
📚 Books to learn Rust
The Rust Programming Language
By Steve Klabnik and Carol Nichols
Released December 2022
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 9781718503106
🌐 Read it online for free
Affectionately nicknamed “the book,” The Rust Programming Language will give you an overview of the language from first principles. You’ll build a few projects along the way, and by the end, you’ll have a solid grasp of the language.
Rustlings
By Rust Community
🌐 Read it online for free
This project contains small exercises to get you used to reading and writing Rust code. This includes reading and responding to compiler messages! It is recommended to do the Rustlings exercises in parallel to reading The Rust Programming Language.
Rust by Example
By Rust Community
🌐 Read it online for free
Rust by Example offers runnable code snippets that demonstrate key Rust concepts and standard libraries. It covers everything from basic syntax to advanced topics like generics and unsafe operations, helping you understand Rust’s unique features and best practices.
Programming Rust, 2nd Edition
By Jim Blandy, Jason Orendorff, Leonora F. S. Tindall
Released June 2021
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 9781492052593
If you’re an experienced developer familiar with languages like C#, Java, Python, or JavaScript looking for an alternative to C++, Programming Rust is for you. This guide not only covers Rust’s features and memory management but also encourages hands-on experience in systems programming. To maximize your learning, consider working on side projects that leverage Rust’s speed, concurrency, and safety. The preface includes topic ideas to inspire your projects, making this book an invaluable resource for enhancing your skills.
Rust for Rustaceans
By Jon Gjengset
Released November 2021
Publisher: No Starch Press
ISBN: 9781718501850
For developers ready to advance beyond the basics, this book is the perfect guide to mastering professional-level Rust programming. Jon Gjengset dives deep into key concepts like ownership, concurrency, and unsafe code, while also exploring advanced topics such as API design, macros, and async/await. With practical insights and expert guidance, Rust for Rustaceans will help you confidently scale your Rust projects and write more reliable, efficient, and flexible code
Rust in Action
By Tim McNamara
Released June 2021
Publisher: Manning
ISBN: 9781718501850
This book explores real-world use cases such as memory management, networking, and concurrency. Whether you’re interested in tinkering with CPU instructions or building efficient applications, this book walks you through Rust’s powerful features, including its famous borrow checker and compiler, while showcasing its performance and safety advantages over other low-level languages.
Zero To Production In Rust
By Luca Palmieri
Released March 2022
ISBN: 9798847211437
Ideal starting point for aspiring Rust backend developers. Through hands-on projects, you’ll build a fully functional email newsletter API from scratch. You’ll learn to navigate Rust’s crates ecosystem, structure your application for modularity, and write comprehensive tests. The book covers essential topics like enforcing domain invariants with Rust’s type system, user authentication and authorization, robust error handling, and structured logging. You’ll also set up a continuous integration and deployment pipeline to streamline your Rust projects.
Idiomatic Rust
By Brenden Matthews
Released August 2024
Publisher: Manning
ISBN: 9781633437463
This book delves into tips, tricks, and design patterns that help you create stable and maintainable applications. Each design pattern is accompanied by detailed explanations and practical code samples, making it easy to implement in real projects. You’ll also learn to avoid common pitfalls and understand when to adhere to or break these patterns. By the end, you’ll be well-equipped to write efficient, idiomatic Rust code that stands the test of time.
Rust Atomics and Locks
By Mara Bos
Released January 2023
Publisher: O’Reilly
ISBN: 9781098119447
This practical guide is essential for Rust programmers eager to master low-level concurrency. Mara Bos, a leader in the Rust library team, demystifies complex concepts like atomics, memory ordering, and their implementation in mutexes and condition variables. With insights into Rust’s type system and hands-on examples for building locking and synchronization primitives, this book equips readers with the skills needed to write correct concurrent code.
▶️ Online courses to learn Rust
Rust Programming Specialization
By Duke University - Coursera
🌐 Enroll for free
Learn to build robust and efficient software with Rust’s unique safety and speed through projects in data engineering, Linux tools, DevOps, LLMs, Cloud Computing, and machine learning operations.
This specialization is divided into five courses:
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