[atomashpolskiy]

For learning Rust I just picked a random, reasonably sized C++ project and spent a few weeks porting it to Rust. Was more than enough to get a grip on the core language features and tools and start receiving interview offers for a Rust position (though I ultimately decided to stay on the JVM track). The project was a face detection library: https://github.com/atomashpolskiy/rustface

[wikibob]

Can you talk more about how you evaluated career options for rust vs jvm and what kept you on the latter?

[atomashpolskiy]

Yeah, it seems like 90% of Rust jobs that are realistically accessible for someone with my background (different servers for the most part) are in crypto space, which I dislike, and there are very few of them as well. Java gives me better and more numerous options to choose from, and recently I even landed a Scala position in a very interesting domain. So it's about variety and job safety after all.

I also would not want to program in Rust for 100% of the time. It's a great tool to have for certain mission-critical types/parts of software where the cost of a mistake is high, but it also can be very frustrating to work with, at least until you become proficient with the idiomatic ways to structure programs and code in Rust. And even then I would not pick it for R&D type of work for instance, where you have to experiment and refactor a lot. Borrow checker is something you have to keep in mind at all times, and as I said already it can be extremely frustrating when you simultaneously have to think about design, execution logic and performance. Doubly so when the parts you're working on are not going to be concurrent in any foreseeable future.

OTOH, I can see how coding something well-defined and to the spec can be rewarding and less expensive in the long run with Rust.