Show HN — [YC S22] – Rust for Impatient Developers (RFID)

[sarupbanskota]

Hey everybody, it’s Sarup and Paul.

"Rust for Impatient Developers" (RFID) is an interactive intro to Rust that skips programming 101, history, other fluff.

Key features:

* Tells you "how to write a function in Rust". Doesn't tell you "what is a function"

* Distraction-free. Introduces exactly one simple idea at a time, no more

* Includes simple interactive questions to verify you understood correctly

* 100% free. Mobile friendly. Tracks and saves your progress.

Try out the first 10 modules "Rust Basics" here: https://app.codecrafters.io/tracks/rust

Why we built this:

We're the makers of CodeCrafters, which offers advanced programming challenges for developers. e.g Build your own BitTorrent in Rust.

Our users repeatedly kept asking for a Rust intro resource that offered "just enough Rust knowledge to get started on a reasonably complex first Rust project".

Initially, we wanted to recommend an external resource.

* But books were too long & too intense

* Tutorials weren't interactive or saving progress

* Jumping right into a Rust project is also too daunting

So we built RFID :)

Please try it out, we'd love any feedback, it's early days. https://app.codecrafters.io/tracks/rust

Questions:

* What could we improve in our current user experience?

* What Rust related topics would you like to see covered?

* What else is difficult about learning Rust? (besides syntax/concepts)

[rvz]

I think we genuinely need this to raise the bar on interview standards much higher. Especially using Rust which LLMs are very clumbsy with getting correct with one shot.

> What could we improve in our current user experience?

Just make this as the next standard for tech interviews by using Rust this time.

[sarupbanskota]

It's a change we'd love to see taking place.

We are aware of tech teams that use our challenges instead of LeetCode style questions for interviewing. We run our interviews using this system. Candidates seem to enjoy the experience, and it's much harder to "fake".

There are two main challenges today:

* Interviewers themselves are used to the standard format — they have answers for, a way to benchmark, tools they're familiar with over years, etc.

* While much harder to "cheat" on these challenges (since there are so many touch-points), offering these as take-homes might be lengthy for some engineers.

If you were in our place, what would you try to do for increasing adoption (whether for hiring or learning)?

[stopachka]

Tried this on mobile and surprised how well it worked. Also nice that no sign up is required!

[sarupbanskota]

Thank you! I _think_ we learnt that from CodeCademy who was among the first to introduce the pattern.

[jonathanlowhy]

Cool. Would love to see this for Golang too. Do you plan to add them for your Golang tracks?

[sarupbanskota]

Eventually, we would love to. In the near/mid-term, it's unlikely.

The reason we specifically chose Rust is because:

* It's rarely someone's first language, so we'll get targeted feedback from users with the right experience level

* It's a somewhat non-intuitive language and has "new/unique" ideas (e.g borrows), so the pain point is particularly strong

* It lacks learning resources (my guess is because the number of Rust developers is relatively small and there's higher barrier to producing content)