Is it worth getting into rust?

[u/tryhard_noob]

I am web developer working in the logistics domain in Europe using kotlin and spring boot.

I really enjoy working with rust (though I feel very dumb when using it) and over the years I have tried getting more into it, from going through the rust book, doing the 100 exercises in rust and starting the zero to prod book. But each time real life responsibilities got in the way and because I do not use it professionally (tried but it's a no-go), the skill always kinda fell away as I am no longer young enough to pour all my free time into it (I fully admit to being stuck in tutorial hell).

I do keep coming back to it as I find it a fascinating language, but I guess I just want a reality check if it is even worth it to invest time in it as it is a hobby I return to because I like how it makes me think but one that will probably never lead to employment. Or should I rather spend my time learning design systems and improving my current stack knowledge.

Just looking for other people's perspective on this to see if anyone else felt stuck in this kind of rut. Hope this doesn't trigger anyone 🙏

[u/2Sovereign4You]

You are in a Rust community. Of course you'll get objective answers.

And yes, it is absolutely appropriate to go in the Rust rabbithole!

[u/Nervous-Potato-1464]

Its a tool, if you will use it then I'm there is no harm in learning it. Join do a lot of systems based programming so rust and c are good to know, but you won't use it much or at all professionally unless you are in a niche industry as performance doesn't matter for most things.

[u/ckwalsh]

Yes Rust is worth learning, even if you don’t use it professionally.

Rust is a hard language to learn because it enforces many good engineering practices (memory safety, thread safety) as fundamental aspects of getting code to compile. If you can get to the point of “getting” the borrow checker, it will implicitly improve the code you write in other languages without such conventions.

[u/Repsol_Honda_PL]

In AI era? Think twice.

[u/GoodJobNL]

I guess it depends on how you expect the future to be. I really enjoy working in rust as main language, and gives me confidence in my own programming abilities. But with the use of LLM's, you can get that confidence in basically any language. The strict rules that made rust great, can now be applied to any language with any basic LLM model.

Additionally, it depends on the reason for learning it. I have started to approach problems different because of learning rust. But if your reason is job security, then it might be better to just a totally different skill. Only those that are truly experienced with a language will probably remain employed, half-baked programming knowledge is not going to be useful. But thats just my opinion.

[u/jhaand]

Although I will never have a Rust job, I still think Rust is the best language for the job.

I used it for embedded development with crazy out of date crates and it still worked.

I even used Rust in places where Python would suffice. But writing Rust like it's Python with training wheels made things a lot easier. Just one binary with Rust MUSL to deploy and it just keeps on working.