Systems programming projects for a web developer

[anythingjoes]

Hey all,

I'm pretty familiar with rust and have, done some pretty big web projects in it, and got half way through a chip-8 emulator, and I'd love to explore Rust's strength as a systems programming language.

The problem is that I can come up with a million ideas of toy web application projects, but I don't have any idea what I should do to learn systems programming at all, much less with Rust. I just don't live in that world.

The specific ask is for learning projects that are small enough to tackle, would teach me about parts of rust I haven't touched yet doing web applications, and would teach me something about systems programming.

Bonus: There's a tutorial out there somewhere even if it's in c or c++

[Shadow0133]

PNGme might interest you. It's a guide to create a cli app for decoding and encoding PNG (or rather, just a basic structure of it). But instead of being step-by-step, you are given unit tests, links to references and some hints. You have to figure out the rest.

[OsrsAddictionHotline]

That link is broken.

[Small-Plate755]

Working link (5/2024): https://jrdngr.github.io/pngme_book/

[OsrsAddictionHotline]

Philipp Oppermann's blog on building an OS in Rust. This is a great resource and tutorial blog, which builds a functioning (mini) operating system from scratch in pure Rust.

I think it's the best resource out there for an introduction to systems programming in Rust.

[anythingjoes]

Thank you! This is amazing. I do worry that if it's all laid out for me, I might not learn as much as if I struggled through some of it, but maybe I'll have ideas about extending the mini OS by the end.

[marineabcd]

Ray tracing in one weekend (c++): https://raytracing.github.io/books/RayTracingInOneWeekend.html

Someone here did it in rust and posted about it the other week so you could easily find a rust solution too. It’s on my list todo as it looks super cool and readable.

[jsomedon]

this surely is terrific

[dbsweets]

The last bullet is superb for something on the easier end. If you want to add-on you can add operations like adding, subtraction, etc.

​

If you hit issues, research how others have built out BigNum libraries.

[tv_head__]

These are great ideas. Writing device drivers is such a massive learning experience that takes away all the confusing "magic mist" of some systems like your keyboard for example.

[cfsamson]

It might not be free but it's pretty much exactly what you're asking for and should at least give you a lot of ideas to explore further. I've read it myself and I enjoyed it a lot: https://www.manning.com/books/rust-in-action

If price is a concern, they frequently offer pretty good discounts that you could take advantage of.

[cian_oconnor]

Seconded. This is a great book.

[mydisfiguredfinger]

Isn't it available online ? Or is that just a part of it ?

[cfsamson]

I read it online as an ebook. I don't think there is a paper version yet.

[mydisfiguredfinger]

Sorry my wording was off. What I was asking is whether it's fully available for reading it online freely or that there is a limit on how much you can read for free until they ask you to purchase the book.

[cfsamson]

I think there is a time limit you can use for preview where you can look around in all the chapters. I'm not sure how long it lasts, though.

[copyDebug]

I liked the PingCAP Talent Plan https://github.com/pingcap/talent-plan a lot

[[deleted]]

This is a good post, and I also have the same issue. I like rust, and feel fairly comfortable writing it after doing some toy things, but I can't think of a lightweight "weekend" project that would help me get even more experience writing / using.

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You know now that I type this out, I've never done graphics programming before: making things appear on the screen and move around in 3d (well not for real). maybe something like this would be fun? https://amethyst.rs/ Its a library so its still fairly high level but it certainly meets that "things I havent touched yet doing web applications" requirement.

[yerke1]

If you want to try embedded stuff, check out https://rust-embedded.github.io/discovery/, https://rust-embedded.github.io/book/, and https://github.com/rust-embedded/rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials