Between my day job and weekend tinkering with electronics, I found myself itching for a new challenge to level up my skills. With the open-source community buzzing about Rust as a general-purpose programming language, I decided it was time to dive in. After skimming through The Rust Book (a rite of passage for any Rustacean), I wanted to go beyond the basics - build something real, deployable, and useful, with tests and everything.
Enter Zero to Production in Rust
I prefer guided learning through books or structured tutorials, and after some digging, I stumbled upon Zero to Production in Rust by Luca Palmieri. Turns out Luca is not just an author but also the creator of some popular Rust crates - a nice bonus!
The book walks you through building a production-ready web application in Rust, covering everything from setup to deployment. But I wasn’t content with simply following along. I wanted to make the journey my own, tweaking things to suit my preferences and experimenting along the way.
My Tweaks
1. Using SQLite Instead of Postgres
While the book uses Postgres, I opted for SQLite. Why?
- It’s lightweight, powerful, and has a subset of features that was more than enough for the exercises.
- I’ve been intrigued by SQLite for production use, especially after reading about how Fly.io leans on SQLite. Tools like DuckDB also make SQLite an exciting space in the data engineering world.
Switching to SQLite meant tweaking queries, migration scripts, and a few functions, but it was a smooth process - and a fun one! You can find my modified code on GitHub.
2. Deploying on Fly.io
Fly.io became my go-to platform for deployment for two reasons:
- Free tier: Perfect for experimenting without commitment.
- SQLite support: Fly.io has first-class support for SQLite, making deployments seamless.
This was my first experience with Fly.io, and it didn’t disappoint. Setting up the app was straightforward, and accessing logs was a breeze - especially when I inevitably broke things during deployment.
What I Loved About the Book
Luca’s writing strikes a great balance between accessibility and depth. The book doesn’t just spoon-feed solutions - it challenges you. One thing I particularly enjoyed was his deliberate use of failing tests to guide the reader into reasoning through the next steps. It’s a clever way to learn and solidify concepts.
Along the way, I got introduced to some fantastic libraries in the Rust ecosystem for web application development, making the journey even more rewarding.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking to learn Rust in a practical, hands-on way, I can’t recommend Zero to Production in Rust enough. It’s a guided journey into building something tangible while uncovering the richness of Rust’s ecosystem.
As for me, I’ve come away not just with a deployed application but also a deeper appreciation for Rust and a renewed curiosity to explore more. If you’re on the fence about diving into Rust, take the leap - you might just fall in love with it.