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Learning Rust (for fun) because sick of AI🙋 seeking help & advice (self.rust)

submitted by Informal-Baseball209

Yo guys, to give you a bit of background: I’m not a developer. I’m an IT project manager who enjoys programming for fun and for automating my workflows. I use Python and Bash almost exclusively.

Over the past year, I’ve started to feel that improving my Python skills doesn’t make much sense for me anymore, because I can simply ask AI to do it and, after some time and debugging, I usually get the result I wanted. That’s great for the efficiency of my work, but it doesn’t really satisfy the joy of solving problems myself.

And that brings me to the reason why I started learning Rust: for fun and for problem-solving. I’m currently going through "The Rust Book" and, at the same time, working on Advent of Code 2025 so I can learn Rust in practice.

My question is: do you have any recommendations on what to focus on, what to avoid for now, and how to approach learning Rust? Sure, I know the usual advice: build a CLI tool, make something I actually use and understand, and so on. But I’m more interested in the kind of advice that only clicked for you after hundreds of hours of using Rust.

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[–]Active-Force2979 27 points28 points  (0 children)

good luck

[–]robe_and_wizard_hat 11 points12 points  (0 children)

love to hear it. this is also how i learned rust. would recommend that you also create a tcp chat server. let the client be telnet. this will force you to deal with concurrency, ownership semantics, and IO. fwiw this is what i do when leaning a new language because it covers so many bases.

[–]vascocosta 6 points7 points  (3 children)

Understanding lifetimes was hard and something I kept delaying probably more than I should. It's the one thing I would focus more right from the beginning if I was starting now. It helps understanding a lot of errors specific to Rust much better.

That said, a deep understanding of lifetimes will take time to sink in, so be patient.

[–]bbkane_ 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Rustlings has a few lifetime exercises and they also point to https://tfpk.github.io/lifetimekata/ for more. I'll be trying those soon myself

[–]Informal-Baseball209[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks a lot did not know about Rustlings, that is why I start with Book + advent of code instead of Book + Ruslings, looking forward to go through it.

[–]vascocosta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a very good starting point.

[–]Weaves87 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Honestly the best way to learn it is to build something you genuinely need. There's no better motivator than needing the software to do something for you, to solve a problem for you. Find a problem that you currently have that needs fixing, create a CLI tool around it.

I spent a lot of time initially learning Rust by working on code for little toy projects and definitely learned a lot in that process. But the real lessons didn't come until I tackled something that was providing me a lot of value. Obviously, not everyone has a project idea up their sleeve that they know will provide them with some value. So start with something dead simple.

Rust is a considerably more demanding language than Python. There are many layers to it. Don't feel overwhelmed when you get to sections of the Rust book that talk about more advanced concepts. Sometimes you'll read about something and feel like "do I need to use this?" and oftentimes the answer is no, at least not yet. There are some features of Rust you may not even touch for a long time until you decide to do something much more complex (like concurrency, or lifetimes)

[–]Cronos993 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Same. I do have a decent bit of Go, C++ and Typescript background tho so for my first actually useful Rust project, I am thinking of creating an audio visualizer using webgpu compiled to wasm and usable in the browser

[–]countsachot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that sounds cool!

[–]nick42d 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fellow IT project manager here! I'd simply say dig in and get started with a project to get a feel for it. Not sure I could say what's clicked though, I guess that it's important how you structure your program in Rust - but that comes with experience rather than any particular tips.

[–]tikhiibhujiya 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Since you're learning for fun rather than work, I'd actually avoid using AI too much while learning. Rust is one of the few languages where the struggle is part of the education

[–]Informal-Baseball209[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly, that’s my path. I google things, read the documentation, look through some repos. I want to have that joy of “it works” and then “why does it work?”

[–]caothudanhgiay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

use AI too much make my brain is doom

[–]bbkane_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also learning Rust and rustlings has been a great way to exercise the stuff I'm reading in the Rust book. I highly recommend!

I am keeping an AI terminal to the side to ask questions (what does this compilation error mean? Why can't I do it this way?) and make cheat sheets for me. That's helping me a lot too

[–]Psionikus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Learn the mechanics of function calling on an abstract CPU. De-mystifies what lifetimes and many traits were developed to solve.

[–]paulqq 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Rust is hard. I asked myself some years ago this question. Do i want to do application or systems development? After having this clear and some initial struggle, i now write sideprojects exclusively in rust. Enjoy the journey

[–]No-Region8878 1 point2 points  (0 children)

good luck! I recently got into rust because of AI, I've made a few apps for my own use case all in rust

[–]Chroiche 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I'm very confused why you think AI can't do rust. IME it's much more useful for rust than Python because it gets blocked by the compiler more.

[–]felotar 0 points1 point  (1 child)

How will you verify if what is being build is actually fundamentally correct? Compiler won't stop illogical choices that slow your program down.

[–]Chroiche 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You won't, but you get much more guarantees than Python.

[–]Informal-Baseball209[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not saying that AI can’t do Rust. Hi Anthropic, nice PR with Bun completely rewritten from Zig to Rust by your AI Agents...

I just feel that improving my Python skills for my use cases - automation and fun is pointless now. Automation is already good to go with just a few right prompts. I’ll probably still build most things in Python with help from AI, because it’s more efficient. But I’ll find “something” that I can write in Rust.

I enjoy learning new things and using them in my work. By learning Rust and then building something with it, I can bring a bit of fun into my work, if its makes sense.

[–]Appropriate-Pin2214 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Rust is hard. I think AI helps.

When you want to get to WASM, however, python and pytorch... Server-side... fine, but what about air-gapped?

Not selling anything, but as a poc, here are two wasm files, in a browser, backed by Rust/ort and onnx that does redaction in your browser... https://www.rulesentry.io with GPU inference if your're setup correctly.

Peace.

[–]_w62_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Try Programming Rust the 3rd edition will be available later this year while the 2nd edition worth a read.

The first five chapters gives you a bird's eye view of the language. Then it comes ownership, traits, genetics etc. The only missing bit is async Rust.

[–]tafia97300 1 point2 points  (1 child)

i wouldn't recommend AOC to learn Rust, those problems are too small to really see Rust benefits. I strongly suggest reimplementing something you already know and that is complex enough (not in terms of performance necessarily but more in terms of architecture).

Rust forces you to think differently, it puts the data in the center and everything gravitates around it (data can have only one owner, you need to move it around etc ...). This may seem "simple" to explain but it has profound implications and very often ends up simplifying a complex problem (do try not to reach for Arc/Rc/RefCell/Mutex).

[–]Informal-Baseball209[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Arc/Rc/RefCell/Mutex — I had never heard of them until now. I read something about them, but I probably don’t want to hear about them again for at least another year. 😃

Thanks for tips.

[–]Suspicious_Word3776 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Someone is working on the Keel language in Rust. I would learn it while it's young.

[–]Plastic_Owl6706 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Me core , well rust keeps clicking 

[–]nazeehg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[ Removed by Reddit ]

[–]Fancyness -3 points-2 points  (3 children)

I don't get the resentment against AI. Its a gift for learning stuff. Every time i am stuck or don't understand why something does not compile, i get a perfect explanation. Its just good at syntax and syntax is a crucial part in learning a new programming language. Next building step are idiomatic solutions and at this AI is also great. So i don't get your problem. Its lame to do everything by yourself. If you have a flying car it doesn't make sense to walk. Embrace the future. Tokens = Revenue. Jensen said it himself on this conference the other day.

[–]Informal-Baseball209[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Maybe the title of the thread is a little bit clickbait. I’m not against AI when it comes to efficiency, automation, or even learning.

But as I said in the post, I feel like there is no longer much need for me to learn more Python or Bash, because the things I do with them are already handled pretty well by my AI setup. I’m even running OpenClaw on my home server with OpenAI and a few local models, and I use my agents every day.

But it doesn’t give me the same fun from programming that I had a few years ago. To me, it feels like an AI black box. Yes, I configure it, and now it works for my niches, but mostly I just ask AI how to configure AI, run some experiments, and voilà.

I wrote this in another comment: I like having those moments of “it works.” and then “Why does it work?” And because I’ve never worked with a low-level control language before, Rust is my choice.

[–]Fancyness 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I imagine it like using Linux and when having a problem copy pasting some commands that were suggested in online forums. Did I always want to know what every single command in its entire form means? Certainly not. It doesn’t matter as long as the machine just behaves as desired. 

But there are Situations where you want to know exactly what is going on and where you just want to understand every single bit of what is happening so you can tweak it if desired. AI doesn’t take that away from you. It enables you to get rid of all the boilerplate that can eat you alive and to focus on the important parts of your project. AI has a very negative connotation between Software Developers because it is forced upon them by their empoyers and it drastically changes how you work: often Developers don’t create anymore but just doing code reviews of ai generated code which can be very frustrating. It’s this sense of not being in control of anything, that truly sucks. But objectively it doesn’t take anything away from the programmer, it just adds more possibilities. No one forces you to fight with bash commands. You still can do it, but you don’t need to. I think AI is empowering and I find it hillarious for being downvoted for this opinion. We live in the best times when it comes to programming. We have the best tools today that ever existed

[–]Informal-Baseball209[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I totally agree. AI is super strong and helpful, as I already said. But I think you are missing my point of view about why Rust.

I am not a developer; I just like to create things for my niches. Most of the time, it is faster with AI, and as you said, it almost does not matter how it works. But for me, learning Rust is just for the joy of learning. I do not need to ask AI what an error means, what the best way to do something is, or why, at least for now.

For example, in my OpenClaw setup folder, I have a “Rust learning” folder and a few prompts that forbid my agent from giving me direct solutions. It can only give me hints based on my current level and progress through The Rust Book and code that I wrote. Even though I have this setup, I still prefer reading the docs on my own because I like doing it this way, and nothing pushes me to be faster or more efficient.

I think Linus Torvalds said that now is a great time to be a developer because AI is so helpful. Having the knowledge of how to work with AI and how to write code is a huge benefit for many good developers. But the message “AI will take your job” is real. Companies are willing to pay cloud AI providers millions and push their employees to use AI no matter what, which does not help the situation.

[–]labooner -1 points0 points  (1 child)

I use Codecrafters. It’s very self driven. They tell you what you need to implement in this step, and you get it done. They have automated tests to prove your project works.

Similar to you, I often struggle to come up with ideas on what to work on without getting bogged down in the specification, tests, etc. Codecrafters really lets you focus on the implementation.

It’s a bit pricey, but take a look at the free courses to see what it’s like.

[–]Solus161 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't get why you get downvoted. I do Codecrafters too. The platform has its own limitations bit it still serve the purpose of learning by building.