---
title: "About"
description: "What learnrust.net is, who the course is for, and the site that inspired it."
url: "https://learnrust.net/about/"
---

# About

learnrust.net is a free, structured course for learning the Rust programming
language. It starts at the very beginning, with what a program even is, and
moves one short lesson at a time through everything you need to write real
Rust: ownership, borrowing, traits, generics, error handling, and the rest.
Nothing is assumed, nothing is hand-waved, and every example compiles as
shown.

Learning to program takes time and practice. The job of this site is to make
sure none of that effort is wasted on confusion: each lesson builds on the
last, so the path from zero to competent is laid out in order, and you always
know what to read next.

The course is complete: every chapter, from the very basics through to the
advanced topics, is written and published, along with the appendices. That
does not mean it stops changing. Like the tutorials that inspired it, this
site is continually maintained and kept up to date, with lessons revised as
Rust evolves and as readers point out anything that could be clearer. So the
content stays current even though the curriculum itself is finished.

## Completely free

Every lesson on this site is free, for everyone, all the time. There is no
account to create, no trial that runs out, no locked "premium" chapters, no
"unlock the rest for $29.99", and no newsletter standing between you and the
next lesson. You can read the whole thing anonymously, start to finish.

If the site ever shows a few ads, it will be to cover hosting costs, and the
lessons will stay free either way.

## How this course is different

The standard advice for learning Rust is to assemble your own curriculum:
read the official book, do exercises somewhere else, then go find a project
to apply it all to. Each of those pieces is good, but the seams between them
are where learners get lost. This site is a single ordered path instead: one
place, one sequence, nothing to assemble.

The course also takes its time getting to ownership and borrowing. Rust's
hardest ideas are introduced only after you can already write complete,
useful programs, so that by the time the borrow checker starts enforcing its
rules, the compiler's error messages feel like a familiar tool rather than a
wall. Reading those messages is treated as a skill to learn in its own right,
not a misfortune to endure.

Finally, "every example compiles as shown" is checked by machine, not by
hope. Every program in every lesson is compiled and run against the current
Rust toolchain before publication, and every terminal transcript on this site
is real captured output.

## Who this course is for

This course is for both complete beginners and experienced programmers, and
it takes both audiences seriously.

If you have never programmed before, the early chapters were designed for
you. Terms are defined when they are introduced, lessons take one concept at
a time, and quizzes in nearly every lesson let you check that things stuck
before you move on. Rust is an unusual but excellent choice for a first
language, and this course assumes nothing except that you can use a computer.

If you have been programming for years, this is not just a quick syntax
tour. Rust has a way of reopening questions you thought were settled: where
values live, who owns them, when they go away, what a reference actually
promises. Working through those questions from the ground up is worth it
even for veterans, and you can skim the parts you already know. I can vouch
for that personally, which brings me to the next section.

## Inspired by learncpp.com

This site is openly modeled on [learncpp.com](https://www.learncpp.com), and
that deserves more than a footnote.

I went through learncpp.com with about four years of programming experience,
and I loved it. I expected to skim. Instead it pulled me back down to the
fundamentals and showed me how much nuance I had been coasting past for
years. It made me a better programmer, not just a person who knew more C++.
And while it did that for me as an experienced developer, it is also one of
the few resources I would hand to a complete beginner without hesitation.
That combination is rare, and it is exactly what I want this site to be for
Rust.

So the structure here is borrowed deliberately: short sequential lessons,
best-practice boxes that tell you the recommended way rather than just the
possible ways, warnings on the footguns, and quizzes that make you actually
write code. If learnrust.net does for Rust what learncpp.com does for C++, it
will have done its job.

## Found a mistake?

A typo, an example that doesn't compile, an explanation that left you more
confused than it found you: reports like these are the fastest way this site
gets better. Email me at
[content@learnrust.net](mailto:content@learnrust.net) and include the URL of
the lesson.

## FAQ

**Do I need to install anything to start?** No. Chapter 0 walks you through
installing Rust when the time comes, and until then you can run any example
in the official [Rust Playground](https://play.rust-lang.org) right in your
browser.

**Should I read the lessons in order?** Yes. Lessons build on each other, and
later ones assume you have read the earlier ones. If you are experienced,
skim rather than skip.

**Is the course finished?** Yes. Every chapter and appendix is written and
published, and the homepage shows the whole table of contents. The site is
still actively maintained, though: lessons are revised as Rust evolves and as
readers point out anything that could be clearer, so the content stays current
even though the curriculum is complete.

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](https://learnrust.net/sitemap.md) for all pages.