Today is five years since I first heard of Rust. I wrote a post last year about it. This year, I have something slightly different in mind.

Five years is a long time in tech. It’s also a long time for me to be focused on one specific thing; other than the pizza job I held in high school and college, I’ve never stayed in a single job for five years. (This is true today as well; it’s not like I got a job with Rust the first day I learned of its existence.) I started with Ruby and Rails in 2008/2009, and my final commits to Rails were in August/September of 2013. So at this point, my career has basically been split in half, rather than dominated by Ruby.

Five years ago tomorrow, I registered http://www.rustforrubyists.com/.

Yesterday, I had lunch with someone I’m very honored to call a friend. We talked about a lot of things, but also about Rust’s past, present, and future. One thing I’ve always felt a little awkward about is that there was a crucial point back in 2011/2012 where I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I was very frustrated by the industry, and considered doing other things instead. But, as they and I talked about, sometimes, it’s not about your interests. If what you want to do is change the world, caring a lot isn’t enough; you have to analyze what you can actually do. While I think our industry is pretty broken, I at least have the ability to try and improve it, thanks to my stature. (God, even just typing that makes me feel gross.)

I decided to put my time into Rust because I believed, and still believe, that it’s an important thing. And I saw the work that needed to be done, and saw that it’s the kind of work that I could do. And so, it’s maybe not something bigger, but I resolved myself to doing the work.

Five years in, I think my journey has been successful so far. I’m proud of how far Rust has come. That said, there’s a lot more work to do. I’m still committed as ever to getting that work done, and feel proud to be able to work alongside people as amazing as the Rust community.

Here’s to five more years. ?