Author: Chris Woodruff

Generics in Rust vs Generics in C#

Generics in Rust vs Generics in C#

Welcome to Day 31, and today we are diving into generics. If you are coming from C# this is probably familiar ground. You know and love List, Dictionary, and all the type-safe goodness that generics bring to your code.

Rust has generics too but with a twist. The syntax might look similar but Rust’s approach gives you some extra control and a few new things to think about.

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Trait Objects: Goodbye virtual, Hello dyn

Trait Objects: Goodbye virtual, Hello dyn

Welcome to Day 30 and today we are going to explore how Rust handles dynamic dispatch with trait objects. If you are used to the world of C# this is the part where you usually reach for abstract classes or virtual methods. Maybe you sprinkle in some interfaces and let polymorphism do the heavy lifting at runtime.

In Rust dynamic dispatch works a little differently and it is all thanks to dyn.

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Logging in Rust: Tracing Without Console.WriteLine

Logging in Rust: Tracing Without Console.WriteLine

Welcome to Day 27 and let’s talk about how Rust handles logging the smart way. If you have been in the .NET world for any amount of time, you are probably used to ILogger. You know the drill: inject a logger, use it throughout your code, and stay away from the quick and dirty Console.WriteLine scattershot approach.

Rust takes a similar path but with its own flavor. It gives you the log and tracing crates, both designed to keep your code clean while still giving you rich, structured log output when you need it.

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Okay, we're on Day 25, and today we’re stepping into the world of failure again. But this time, it’s the catastrophic kind. We’re not talking about the "file didn’t open" kind of error. Nope, we’re talking about "game over, stop everything, hit the eject button" failure. In .NET, you’re familiar with exceptions. In Rust, there’s something called panic!. But these two aren’t quite the same thing. Rust draws a hard line between recoverable errors and unrecoverable failures, and understanding that line is a big mindset shift for anyone coming from C#.

Panic! vs Exceptions: Stop the World or Handle It?

Okay, we’re on Day 25, and today we’re stepping into the world of failure again. But this time, it’s the catastrophic kind. We’re not talking about the “file didn’t open” kind of error. Nope, we’re talking about “game over, stop everything, hit the eject button” failure.

In .NET, you’re familiar with exceptions. In Rust, there’s something called panic!. But these two aren’t quite the same thing. Rust draws a hard line between recoverable errors and unrecoverable failures, and understanding that line is a big mindset shift for anyone coming from C#.

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Error Propagation with ?: So Simple, So Smart

Error Propagation with ?: So Simple, So Smart

Day 24… today we’re digging into one of my favorite “why doesn’t every language have this?” features in Rust: the ? operator.

If you’ve spent any time in C#, you’re no stranger to the good ol’ try/catch flow. You wrap some code in a try, you catch the exception, and you hope you didn’t forget to check for null or some unexpected state.

Rust takes a different approach with Result and the magic of the ? operator. It keeps your error handling clean, readable, and safe without the overhead (or drama) of exceptions.

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Crates and Dependencies: NuGet, Meet Cargo

Crates and Dependencies: NuGet, Meet Cargo

Day 23… let’s talk about how Rust gets its packages! If you’re coming from the .NET world, you’re no stranger to NuGet. It’s been your trusty sidekick for pulling in libraries, managing versions, and bloating that csproj file with package references.

In Rust, the equivalent is Cargo, and its packages are called crates. But here’s the twist: Cargo doesn’t just handle your dependencies. It’s your project manager, your build system, your tester, and your publisher, all rolled into one delightful tool.

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Organizing Code: Rust Modules vs C# Namespaces

Organizing Code: Rust Modules vs C# Namespaces

Welcome to Day 22! After a week of wrestling with data modeling, it’s time to talk about something near and dear to every developer’s heart: keeping your code organized (and your sanity intact).

If you’re a C# developer, you’ve lived in the world of namespaces, public and internal access modifiers, and .cs files that can stack up faster than your coffee cups during crunch time. In Rust, the story is a little different, but delightfully simple once you get the hang of it.

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