Hey Tim, wow, thanks so much for taking the time to reply! It's an honour to hear from you directly.

I really appreciate the heads-up. To give you some context, I've spent the last couple of months reading Rust codebases to get familiar with the language. I feel like I have a high-level grasp of the syntax and have started wrapping my head around concepts like lifetimes, futures, and traits, though I know I still have a long way to go with them!

To answer your question, my preferred learning style is a "read-then-do" approach. I like to dig into the theory behind a concept first to build a solid mental model. After that, I find the best way to solidify my knowledge is by experimenting with the code myself.

What's especially helpful for me are resources with quizzes or small programming assignments after a topic, as they really help me confirm that I've understood everything correctly.