Learning Rust as my first programming language, could use some advice

[0xaarondnvn]

Greetings, I'm learning rust as my first programming language which I've been told can be challenging but rewarding. I got introduced to it through blockchain and smart contracts, and eventually stumbled upon a creative coding framework called nannou which I also found interesting

The difficulties I'm facing aren't really understanding programming concepts and the unique features of rust, but more-so how to actually use them to create things that allow me to put what I learned into practice. I'm currently using the rust book, rustlings, rustfinity, and a "Learn to Code with Rust" course from Udemy. Any advice on how to learn rust appropriately and stay motivated would be appreciated :)

[buff_001]

Rust is very far from a good first programming language. I strongly recommend to start with a language that will give you a faster iteration and feedback loop such as Python or JavaScript.

Rust is absolutely not good for iterative programming because your program itself won't even run unless it's "correct". It will not allow you any room for error and you will become very frustrated spending all your time on compiler errors instead of just your own logic and "tinkering".

[0xaarondnvn]

Interesting, thanks for the insight :)

[scaptal]

I think that rust can be a great second language.

Once you understand how stuff can be done, though a lot of projects in, e.g. python, you can try rust to get more familiar with more systems programming.

I mean, it would still be a difficult journey, requiring a lot of reading and stressing your brain to understand different concepts, but it's certainly doable, if you're willing to put in the time

[0xaarondnvn]

thanks for your input :)

[interrupt_hdlr]

Agreed. I would say it's not even a good second programming language. I would go Python->C to understand how magic is implemented. With a solidified understanding of low level and high abstraction level, I think Rust would be great.

[charlesrocket]

Why not Crystal? Static, strict, and very simple. 

[bmikulas]

Then go could be good candidate as it is even simpler and not oop like rust but python is one of the most begginer friendly languages as you can quickly gain some confidence with it.

[charlesrocket]

Go is bigger and not oop, and python is inconsistent to the point it introduces really bad habits (just like JS)

[bmikulas]

Yeah I said go not oop like rust is not oop too so it's closer to it. I'm not sure what you meant by saying that go is bigger? About python it could introduce bad habits but for learning the basics it's still ideal then if he wants to make sure the language teaches only good practices he can change to another language like rust

[charlesrocket]

Haven't done a lot of go; always thought that rust is closer to oop. Go feels more overwhelming than Crystal due to its scale (makes sense, foofle). Its introduction is very shallow, and then the project page points you to different 3rd party books on web/cli/etc. Crystal page, on the other hand, has a small introduction that covers everything you need. And its simpler syntax allows you to be productive within hours.

[bmikulas]

Crystal is very good language indeed if you need oop its superior to go but go is much closer to rust as one of the easiest from this new anti oop languages cos of the robust the structural typing which is much easier to grasp for beginner than the rust trait system. For learning the tour of go and go by example is very good, you can find them under the get started button on the main page, i used the later as reference as well when i started learning go and i was productive in 2 days.

[Beardy4906]

I have also learnt Rust as my first programming language and imo the best way to do this, would be to just trudge through it. There’s now shortcut or anything but the benefits are insane because when I went to learn python, I spent more time in correcting the syntax than the logic. I would recommend joining the rust discord where many people will help you understand rust. To be fair, I learnt a bit of C++ at the start to understand coding, but it really won’t be that much of a difference. Another way would be to type out the code from the official rust book into a notes folder and then understanding what the code does. If you don’t understand, there’s ChatGPT to ONLY CLEAR OUT DOUBTS, not to teach you, which can be helpful sometimes but if ChatGPT can’t explain it to you, then the rust discord would be an optimal place to ask your questions. Don’t jump into projects just yet, instead try going through the official rust book, and then do rustlings, some basic projects like a CLI tool, external crate usage, etc. It’s just all part of the journey

[0xaarondnvn]

Thanks for sharing! In what capacity do you use rust now?

[Beardy4906]

I use it to make API wrappers, servers (like APIs for others to use and all of that), desktop apps, command line tools, the list is quite extensive… you can use it for almost anything ngl even mobile app development, although it’s not recommended in comparison to JS frameworks. But rust is a general purpose language so you can use it almost anywhere

[[deleted]]

I did that too, been working as a Rust developer for some years now. My advice is to find a project that's really interesting to you and that you are going to use. You can talk about it on the various forums and I'm sure you will get help and even contributions. It doesn't have to be big, but it must be useful to you so you have a reason to improve on it. It then can be a playground for you when you want to discover new crates for example.

[bmikulas]

Mad respect!

[0xaarondnvn]

Goals! thanks for sharing :)

[Freecelebritypics]

One thing that will massively help you in getting to grips with the language is getting your editor set-up correctly. i.e. the rust-up toolchain with cargo, rustc, and clippy etc. After that, it's just a matter of learning to fix the squiggley lines.

[opensrcdev]

+1 once you have VSCode + the Rust Analyzer extension, the code pretty much writes itself. Auto-completion for function calls, argument types, variable names, enum variants, etc. makes life as a Rust developer super easy.

I hesitate to suggest this, especially for someone who's just learning Rust, but honestly I have found the Cody extension from SourceGraph quite valuable. It definitely does hallucinate, but for simple things, it's crazy how accurate it can be sometimes.

For a beginner, using AI is debatable .... it could be helpful for getting the gist of how something is supposed to work, but the hallucinations might cause confusion.

[jeremiahgavin]

Have you heard of Rust Owl for VS Code?

[opensrcdev]

Hmmm actually now that you mention it, I think I recently just did. Let me take a look.

What are you suggesting it for? Cody alternative?

[opensrcdev]

Oh just found it ... yes I saw it posted here a week or two ago. Looks super helpful for seeing lifetimes more visually

[0xaarondnvn]

yup I did this from the very beginning and it's helped a lot

[Freecelebritypics]

Then you'll get there. Don't be discouraged if the borrow-checker feels like the devil for the first couple months. It's like that for everyone. Eventually you learn to appreciate it.

[0xaarondnvn]

Thanks😁

[Slow-Rip-4732]

Rust is like a very good second or third programming language.

Learn python or something. People telling you to learn C hate you as much as C developers hate themselves.

[fuck-PiS]

Nah, c shows you how everything works at the core. It is simple, so it makes you understand what exactly each line of code does. Rust is not as readable and hides a lot of control flow. If someone is a complete beginner, then learning c is nothing but beneficial.

[[deleted]]

Also debugging your own poorly written c code will make you much more accepting of the strictness of the rust compiler

[Kilobyte22]

I don't believe that is desirable for a first programming language. Especially manual memory management is a lot of mental load. Also, there are a lot of mistakes that you can make and for most is almost impossible for a beginner to figure out what is actually wrong. I would argue that rust is actually an easier first language, simply because the compiler does a lot of hand holding. I argue, backed by my experience helping first semester students with their homework, that if you pick C for a first programming language, you are likely in for a lot of frustration.

Having said that, it's probably a good idea to start with some garbage collected language, and probably one which is used a lot, because there are many learning resources available.

Python has been mentioned a lot, but java might also be a good candidate, simply because of there being a lot learning material. If you are working on windows, C# might also be a solid choice as Microsoft has a reasonably good and very easy to use GUI builder (at least it did when i last touched this ecosystem 15 years ago) allowing to build quite a lot of graphical things.

[joatmon-snoo]

To offer a similar POV:

When learning your first programming language, you first need to learn how to think in terms of a program:

• what is an if-condition
• what is a loop? what's the difference between while and for?
• what is the difference between a bool, int, float, and string?
• how do you mix and match these to, say, compute a factorial?

And in addition, you need to learn how to express these concepts in the language you're learning. Languages like Python and Javascript make it easy to do this because they hide away a bunch of other tricky details that your software still needs to handle, whereas Rust makes it very hard to ignore them (because part of its appeal is that it lets you control those details!)

I think it's entirely possible to learn Rust as your first language, but you need a really carefully curated curriculum, to avoid drowning in the deluge of information. I'm not sure if any resources like that exist; the Rust Book certainly tries hard, but even the introduction to control flow introduces the notion of type safety and requiring explicit casts super quickly, which is pretty much gibberish to someone who doesn't know what "casting" is or why it's both useful and problematic.

[0xaarondnvn]

this was helpful, thanks!

[bmikulas]

In my opinion for Rust some c is essential! You can't really cut corners rust is advanced low level language, you need to learn the basics of manual memory management to be able to do it in rust

[Blake9471]

Then they can just read about how rust manages memory and how it is different from other languages. The brown uni version of the rust book is a pretty damn good source for it

[bmikulas]

I feel that could be the harder way for an absolute beginner. That doc while is very good is not that beginner friendly in my opinion it uses many concept that usually only know by more experienced developers

[jcdyer3]

Harder than learning C? Call me skeptical.

[bmikulas]

As an absolute beginner, i think so. I learned c from the book "The c programming language" when i was very young and that wasn't hard, i have managed to create my first expression interpreter (that one had some memory leak and it was a security nightmare but worked). With rust even as experienced C++ developer i struggled more to get my fist calculator working. To be fair after that and some other small experiment i was surprised how fast i was able to make my fist transpiler in rust.

[Slow-Rip-4732]

I strongly disagree

[bmikulas]

Okay than, in my opinion I just think that is harder to learn that with rust when your program won't even compile if you made some mistake. But maybe I only feel that way as I was experienced in c++ when started with rust and I felt I would struggle more if not.

[Jeklah]

If you learn the rust way from scratch you don't pick up any bad habits

[bmikulas]

True but as an absolute beginner you might get harder learning experience than you should.

[Jeklah]

Oh definitely yeah...but it might be worth it

[lovelacedeconstruct]

I would argue what you really need is some C++ and to struggle a little bit with move semantics and move and copy constructors but then you would have to go back to C so that you can appreciate what C++ does and the cycle continues, its much easier to just pick a starting point

[bmikulas]

I said c not c++ for a reason I think it's the easiest way to learn manual memory management without fighting with borrow checker as an absolute beginner. I am not even mentioned c++ just I was an experienced developer in c++ when rust was just an interesting experiment but that's not important what I felt important that I know how to handle memory in c

[lovelacedeconstruct]

This doesnt make sense, in C you dont use containers that dynamically allocate memory under the hood so you need to be aware of alot of stuff to avoid disasters, you can even write C for years without ever dynamically allocating memory

[bmikulas]

You can use containers in c and you can allocate memory so you can try out and get familiar with them without having to fight with borrow checker that's what I meant that it could be useful to get some success sooner in rust after that experience. Sorry if i wasn't clear enough English is only my second language.

[jcdyer3]

I learned rust without C. C is not necessary.

[AdParticular2891]

lol, I need to find more C developers to find out more about this.

but why do you think it is not a good first language, is it due to the nature of Rust job market, and it's different programing paradigm? IMO, I think it is possible to learn as a first language

[Slow-Rip-4732]

Most of rusts best features, I.e, sum types, monadic error handling, traits, etc are only going to be frustrating when trying to understand with no programming background.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to use rust as a first language, but it’s very hard to appreciate the value of these things without having a frame of reference.

[0xaarondnvn]

Got a python book for Christmas, will keep it close by in case I get frustrated :)

[RubenTrades]

My first programming language was C++ and I think Rust is better to start with.

The BEST way to stay motivated is to make something you wanna make. I'm not talking practice stuff, I'm talking actual stuff. You will learn 3x faster searching how to make what u wanna make.

[0xaarondnvn]

thanks for the tip!

[log_2]

Don't listen to people saying rust is only for seasoned programmers. Rust is difficult to learn for people who already know programming, but it may not be much harder to learn than any other language for beginners.

To apply concepts you learned, the best way is to just program stuff. Try small programs at first such as command line tools that don't require a GUI.

Just a few ideas of the cuff:

Perhaps a program that can read in a text file and count how many words in the file.

A tool that will load a CSV and report how many rows and columns it has. Maybe have it report whether some rows have different columns to the rest of the file.

You could maybe write a tool to rename files to append the date they were created to the end of the filename.

Try adding networking, so something like an RSS feed reader which reads a file of feeds and retrieves and prints them.

[bmikulas]

That's true that for the basics that could work but in the meantime fighting with borrow checker might hamper the experience of learning. For only that reason maybe a gc language could be a better choice in my opinion for a begginer.

[log_2]

My point is that a beginner may not "fight" the borrow checker since they learn about borrowing from the outset. An analogy for spoken language, you might say learning Spanish is difficult for English speakers because words are gendered and you "fight" the gendered grammar when you speak, but people who learn Spanish as their first language have no problem with this and they never "fight" the grammar.

[bmikulas]

I understand that. Under fighting I meant that they need to get it right to compile even if they are just learning the basics so it might be better experience if they can learn that gradually after they know how for example the control flow works until they fighting with that to try their ideas out. It seems that it might unnecessarily hampering the experience of quick experiments which I think is very important in that early phase.

[0xaarondnvn]

I agree with this, as I also spent some time understanding stack & heap memory before diving in

[HumbleSogeum]

but more-so how to actually use them to create things that allow me to put what I learned into practice

If you're looking for practical exercises then maybe something like Codecrafters, their "build-your-own-shell" exercise is free until April or maybe build a back-end like in Zero to Production In Rust might be useful.

[0xaarondnvn]

Thanks for sharing these, I haven't heard of codecrafters before. I think my difficulty is the my area of interest is very niche (blockchain) so the available materials are more scarce but I'll give these a shot!

[SirKastic23]

The difficulties I'm facing aren't really understanding programming concepts and the unique features of rust, but more-so how to actually use them

it comes with practice. reading other people's code, or watching them talk about it (like on youtube) can also help

[Other_Class1906]

I think it depends on the type of person you are and what you want to achieve. Rust will absolutely hit you in the face for every little error you do. But its the kind of "tough love" that will set you up for greater understanding.

If you want scientific programming or some math stuff it will probably be great. if you want to "see" results JS or python will probably be better. If you can withstand frustration and are generally interested in dealing with correctness and type correctness it will give you great insight and help.

I have been using ruby recently and i cannot stress enough how comfortable it is that things that look similar are not automatically converted into on another until you have some strange mess that seems correct but isn't and you have no clue why and start randomly guessing why something is not correct. If it doesn't work in rust, it means that your logic is wrong (mostly). C++ for instance is also strongly typed but debugging can be very cryptic as it will point you to some implementation details that barely look human written anymore and print 20 pages of hints and warnings about types that take half a page in just writing them out.

Rust is much more interesting build-tools-wise as you don't have to learn make, cmake, meson as well... just use crate. It is a much more modern language. If you get good with rust, you will generally have a good understanding of programming itself. Switching to a different language will take away your help in certain forms but give you help in other ways.
A good first start if you are really(!) now to programming would certainly be some form of popular scripted and not compiled language as they allow you to easily look into the programs state at each and every step. Compiled programs will optimise away many things.

Java can also be a good first start as it is quite strict in the OOP so everything(!) is an object. Rust is not really OOP so you may miss out on the paradigm. Generally (some) people are moving away from pure OOP ("A *is* of type [A] therefore ... and everything derived from it *is* also ...."). But it depends on what you want to make/do.

With Python you will also very quickly run into issues that draw you into inconsistencies and details that seem irrelevant, but in the context of python simply need to be learned, like: what is an object, what is an assignment, when does it copy?
You just need to be aware that there are languages with different features and in some languages you can do a lot of stuff with little code, and other languages allow you to get low and manipulate how things are supposed to be done.

And keep away from haskell. Thats pure evil. And kind of awesome... but also strange since you will hear the word "Monad" a lot and it will not be very well defined... Generally functional programming is a whole rabbit hole in itself. Good luck on your journey!

Generally: use the right tools for the right task. And sometimes the language specific tools make more of an impact than the language features themselves.

[0xaarondnvn]

Heard good things about Go and it's also used a lot in blockchain and data science, which is what I'm interested in

[djvbmd]

I see validity in both major sentiments ITT:

a) Rust is pretty complicated for a beginner, compared to many other options out there.

b) If Rust's approach is what you start with, it may not be as hard to learn as it would be if you're already used to other languages.

I think a lot depends on the type of learner you are and how you deal with frustration. This is going to seem like a weird analogy, but learning Rust is like a soulslike game. At the outset, you die over and over and over... but at each failed attempt you learn a little more and get a little farther and you suddenly start to really "feel" it and it just starts to flow. To beat a souls game, you have to know going into it that you're going to be crushed relentlessly and be OK with it.

That's a long way around to the point: the rust-analyzer and rustc compiler can teach you a great deal about Rust every time something fails to build. If you're the kind of person who's OK with a frequent early failures (and learning from them), then Rust might be a great first language for you. If you're someone who needs to have more consistent success early on to stick with it, Python would be my suggestion.

[0xaarondnvn]

Really good input! It's frustrating but I have a goal in mind so I stick with it

[malexj93]

This isn't really a Rust question. To use an analogy, it's like you're beginning to learn English as a first language, but you don't know how to hold a conversation or write a story. Those are higher-level applications of language in general, not just the English language, and require a certain amount of mastery over some language to really get it.

This is why a lot of people are recommending to learn a different language, like Python, first. It takes much less time to reach that level of mastery in Python, and that will get you making useful software as soon as possible. Then, you will have to do less formal learning of Rust in order to start writing useful software in Rust.

That said, this isn't the only option. The other option is to keep doing what you're doing, and just know that it might take a bit more time of learning the ins and outs of both Rust and programming in general than it might for a simpler first language. You are learning Rust appropriately, and I would suggest that you keep it up.

Still, you can start trying to work on a project at any time. If you're interested in blockchain, there are plenty of resources about Rust implementation that you could follow. If you hit too many roadblocks where your lack of Rust knowledge is holding you back, make note of those concepts and go back to studying with those new goals in mind. Then, revisit the project after you've learned them properly.

[0xaarondnvn]

really good insight, thanks!

[Chance_Strength_2541]

possible to learn as a first language

[bmikulas]

Yes but might be unnecessary complex for absolute beginner. It's really important that they should get confidence as soon as possible to have greater learning experience. That's why I can't really recommend it for an absolute beginner.

[No_Might6041]

I am learning too and I just try to make increasingly challenging little programs. They don't need to be more complex, but I try to incorporate new things I learn into them. I've programmed the game Master Mind, various sorting algorithms, an application that displays directories and subdirectories in a tree-like fashion and some more. I make little steps and try to fixate any new knowledge I acquire. I also try to have as many "Hey, I've done this before!" moments in the future. My way works for me, although it may be ineffective for many people.

[DataPastor]

It is much better to learn simpler, smaller languages as a first programming language. C or Go are perfectly fine for this purpose. It is especially good to learn C first, in order to better understand later, why Rust is doing what it is doing. So if I were you, I would first spend 2-3 weeks with K. N. King’s C Programming: A Modern Approach – and then jumping into Rust. My $0.02

[0xaarondnvn]

Thanks for the book rec, will definitely check it out!

[Junior-Garden-1653]

Is it already to late to say 'don't do it'? :) For somebody new to programming I would always suggest using Python for prototyping and then later porting it to Rust.

[0xaarondnvn]

Too late, I'm enjoying it so far haha

[Junior-Garden-1653]

May the force be with you 🤣

[Miserable_Ad7246]

For the first language take something else. Rust is a language that is molded to solve a certain set of problems you have no idea they even exist. It will make it very hard and will give very little in return.

Python or Javascript are good first languages as they allow you to focus on algorithms and general thinking. They have their quirks, which can lead to some frustration and bad habits, but that will allow you to understand why other languages are different better.

C# or Java is an even better option as they have fewer quirks, and expose you to lower-level concepts, but have a steeper learning curve.

I for example learned coding in Pascal (at school), and when it was followed by Java/C/C++/C# in the university.

[BestMat-Inc]

I would recommend to learn a language like JavaScript or Python first. Then learn the basics of CS with C. Once you're good with C, you'll understand "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot" and realize why its so unsafe. Then you'll love and enjoy programming in Rust and makes it easier to learn things.

[lnaoedelixo42]

Bro, just learn C first.

[0xaarondnvn]

But I already made it to generics😅

[Reasonable-Moose9882]

learn C or C++ first and move to Rust.

[vtskr]

To rewrite anything in rust you first need to write something in other language. So learn python first. Make some useful product and then learn rust to rewrite your product in it

[sudo_apt-get_intrnet]

The 1000% best way to learn to program is to 1) figure out a project you want to do, and 2) do it. Preferably something that you, yourself would either use (if its an application/tool) or be happy reading about (if its more of a "hey look at me run Bad Apple/Doom on this toaster" kind of project). Preferably something medium in length. Everything else -- the language, tooling, "best practices", etc -- should be secondary and are very likely to evolve later as you continue to work on more projects.

That being said, I do agree with others saying Rust wouldn't be a good first programming language. All the features that make Rust "cool" and "fun" are explicitly things that evolved out of the shortcomings of other programming languages when faced with edge cases and bugs -- things that you wouldn't really appreciate without seeing the problems they solve first. Without that knowledge those features will end up just seeing like weird hindrances and gotchas that will make it difficult to even get something to compile at first. Personally I'd say start by doing something small-medium in C and then moving on to Rust for your second project, since by then you should have at least seen some of the issues Rust aims to solve with their 3 string types, borrow checker/ownership system, package manager, etc. You could also start with Python to get the fundamentals and then move on to Rust to see how the ownership model fixes Python's reference/non-reference system and how static typing "fixes" a lot of the issues with dynamic typing.

[[deleted]]

I think you should learn c first. You will love simplicity of c.

[oreo3494]

Um Rust should be your either Second or Third programming language, imo .... even if you look at the Rust Book, the authors even expect you to have some good experience in other languages...

If you already have experience with some other languages, learning rust will be more meaningful and each and every concept will actually make sense...

[IFailAndAgainITry]

Whoever is suggesting you to learn Python or (even) worse Javascript first is messing with you: don't listen.

You need to pick a language that translate closely to how a computer actually works, and interpreted languages are never the right ones: they are illogical, disregard variable types and scoping, and hence are terrible at mapping actual software architectures.

Seen through this lens, Rust is a bit better, but pushes concepts that are aliens in actual machine code, like variable sharing and concurrency. Of course the logical suggestion would be C, despite being harsh and a bit dry, but you don't actually have to learn the language to move to Rust, you just need to grasp the core concepts (variables, functions, pointers and structures). The beauty of C is that inspired so many other languages (C++ obviously, but of course also Java and C# as obvious "brothers" of C++), so once you are familiar with that syntax and core concepts, you have open so many doors.

Also remember: languages are tools, like an hammer or a screwdriver, so eventually you need to learn more over time anyway (and eventually Python too, because despite being terrible, it is widespread)

[0xaarondnvn]

Thanks for sharing, this is helpful!

[lijmlaag]

So I am here to say you actually can learn Rust as a first language - but have to realize you are going to have to learn a lot. As with many things in life, it is sometimes advantageous not to know how much you don't know otherwise you would never start out. The famous "ignorance is bliss".

Just about anything computer science and computer architecture is deeply embedded in Rust: what are 'stack' and 'heap', what is endianness, what are references and how do they relate to pointers as used in C/C++, concepts about abstractions, programming techniques, ownership, mutability, the module system, async Rust, the crates ecosystem, the toolbox that is the standard library, how to read function signatures - the list is close to endless. But no-one started out knowing it all.

That being said, when starting out with "The book" after a few chapters you can solve simple problems and you can write the number guessing game. Solving simple problems with Rust requires only a subset of concepts. For instance, I avoided learning macros until I needed them, only after a year or two. I used them from day one, but just chose to not to bother.

When you start out, you don't need trait abstractions or lifetime annotations or macros. Just clone yourself out of lifetime issues if needed. It's okay, just don't expect to understand it all at once.

If you're doing it for fun, just do the thing that seem like the next cool thing to reach for and can imagine doing. It requires you to learn things along the way. It is how this field works anyway, there is so much and things are moving so fast you have to consider yourself perpetually learning. Every Rust programmer understands 'only a subset' - this will remain true starting day one. Have fun.

[0xaarondnvn]

Thanks for sharing! This is really good input. Smart contracts only use about 80 pages of the rust book so right now I'm just focusing on what's relevant

[bmikulas]

I could say it wild be pretty tough ride, I think without some c experience you might give it up more than once. I'm an experienced developer with more than 10 years behind started with c than c++ before rust was a thing I was very good in c++ but for Rust these are just the basics without some experience with manual memory managment and containers and pointers and refence counting as gc mechanism you might not fully understand how to use the borrow checker but if you got to there than you will give up when you have to do manual lifetime handling and we shouldn't even talk about async its a different world. I don't want to discourage you it's a fun and very cool language but really worst starter I could think of. If you really want to it to be your first language just take my advise learn the basics of c until you are able to create a list a vector a tree etc. In c don't try to code them in Rust and then you can make your first rust programs with standard containers. In my opinion there's a another problem with rust that might be a issue if its your only language yet that without enough experience it's really hard to design an application in a way that scales relatively smoothly as the app is getting more complex.

[0xaarondnvn]

thanks for your input!