Rust Tutorials Codebase

Project Overview

This is a learning-focused Rust repository containing independent tutorial projects, not a production application. Each subdirectory is a standalone Cargo project demonstrating speci`fic Rust concepts.

Architecture

• Independent modules: Each directory (guessing_game/, ownership/, structs/, etc.) is a separate Cargo workspace with its own Cargo.toml and src/main.rs
• No shared code: Projects don't import from each other - they're educational examples, not interconnected modules
• Self-contained: Run projects individually with cargo run from their respective directories

Key Projects

• common_concepts/: Variables, data types, functions, control flow, loops, temperature conversion
• ownership/: Ownership rules, borrowing, slices with detailed comments
• guessing_game/: Interactive CLI with rand crate dependency
• todo-cli/: File I/O example with todos.txt persistence
• snake_game/: Game using macroquad crate (not actually snake, it's a space shooter)
• structs/: Struct definitions, methods, builder pattern (build_user)
• modules/: Module system basics (pub mod kitchen)
• vectors/: Mutable vector iteration pattern

Development Workflow

Running Projects

cd <project_name>
cargo run

Dev Watcher (guessing_game only)

The guessing_game/dev.sh script provides auto-reload functionality:

• Uses cargo watch for file watching
• Type rs to manually restart, q to quit
• Requires cargo-watch installed: cargo install cargo-watch

Coding Conventions

Edition Configuration

• Most projects use edition = "2024" (note: this is unusual, standard is 2021)
• snake_game uses edition = "2021"

Code Style Patterns

1. Educational comments: Code includes detailed explanations (see ownership/src/main.rs lines 13-18)
2. Function organization: Multiple example functions called from main() to demonstrate concepts
3. Explicit typing: Type annotations used for teaching clarity (e.g., let y: i32 = 10)
4. Emoji in output: CLI tools use emoji for user-friendly messages (✅, 📭, 🧹 in todo-cli)

Common Patterns

• Match for error handling: match input.trim().parse() pattern in guessing_game
• Reference passing: &Rectangle for struct methods without ownership transfer
• Derive Debug: Use #[derive(Debug)] for structs + {:#?} pretty-print
• Module exports: Use pub mod + pub fn for public module APIs

Documentation Files

• guessing_game/integers.md: Integer type reference (ranges, signed vs unsigned formulas)
• Not every project has docs - most are self-explanatory from code

Building New Examples

When adding new tutorial projects:

1. Create new directory at root level
2. Run cargo init inside it
3. Follow naming convention: lowercase with underscores
4. Add focused examples in main() - avoid complex abstractions
5. Include inline comments explaining non-obvious Rust concepts
6. Use emoji in CLI output for better UX consistency with existing projects

Testing

No test files exist - this is a tutorial repo focused on demonstrating syntax and concepts, not TDD practices.