I have been programming in Rust for about three months now, and it’s been so wonderful (and, yes, that includes some “arguments” with my beloved frenemy borrow checker). That wonderfulness exponentially increased since I attended RustConf. There have been many blog posts0 about the talks that do a great job of covering the material, so I’ll write about my impression, feelings, and thoughts on RustConf as a whole.

Lots of Hobby Projects

Many people who have been writing Rust were at RustConf. That’s cool! Some of the people I talked to had never written Rust before. That’s awesome too! It’s great that RustConf was a welcoming place for both newer and experienced Rust users. I noticed that many people who did write programs in Rust were often doing it for their hobby projects. Even some talks were about hobby projects! I think this cocktail of people with varying experience levels, most of whom do not code in Rust at work, created a unique vibe. I could tell that a lot of people were there on their dime and during their free time, because they genuinely enjoyed learning the language. It’s really wonderful meeting a bunch of playfully intellectual people.

Focus on the Community

I was talking to someone who shared the table with me, and at one point he said: “people on the Rust user forum are so polite, which is surprising for a group of programmers.” I was surprised to hear that, but because of not so obvious reasons. I thought: ‘wait, people being mean is the norm? Rust community is the outlier?!’ My appreciation for people who take care of the Rust community shot up exponentially upon hearing that. My friend Stefan has also said that it’s really awesome Rust had a Code of Conduct even before 1.0.0 shipped. It’s great that Rustaceans are shifting programming community norms towards being nice. Experiencing that offline was wonderful.

Going Forward

I was drinking a ton of tea during the conference (because the tea selection was on point 💯), and so the breaks between talks were very much appreciated. Whenever I had to go to the restroom, I didn’t have to wait! I even had a choice for stalls! Women’s restrooms usually have longer lines than men’s (at malls, movie theaters, bars …everywhere), so that was kind of nice. But when I saw that men’s restroom had a huge line, I was inspired to make those restroom lines the same length! My friend Malisa and I have been thinking of starting a new Rust meetup with the hope of making us wait for the restroom in future RustConfs 😋

Rust is used in production more, and it is attracting more and more people, which is great news. I hope that this means the Rust community will evolve to become even better, and I’m excited what RustConf will be like next year and beyond!