Configuring an IDE

There is one additional tool we will need to install before proceeding. We need a text editor that let's us write and edit the Rust code we want to run.

There are a lot of different text editors out there, called IDE's (Integrated Development Environments) but if there's one thing I know, if you're starting out, you don't want to know how many there are but rather which one will help you right now. My advice: don't waste too much time on choosing an IDE, instead learn Rust and eventually write your own 🤗.

As far as this guide is concerned, I only recommend Visual Studio Code for new starters as I use it myself daily. It does the job.

To install it, go to the Visual Studio Code website and follow the exhaustive instructions for your operating system.

Configurations & extensions

Visual studio code offers the possibility of installing extensions to extend its functionality. A few extensions that I can recommend for developing with Rust are:

  • rust-analyzer by The Rust Programming Language : Rust language support for Visual Studio Code

  • CodeLLDB by Vadim Chugunov: A native debugger powered by LLDB. Debug C++, Rust and other compiled languages.

There are a few more I'll talk about later on but for now these are sufficient. To install them, click on the links or search for them in the Visual Studio Code extensions panel (located on the left grey bar).

Note

One configuration I recommend (for now) is to disable inlay type hints. What Visual Studio Code does natively, is to show you which types a specific variable has by adding the type next to the variable. This causes for a lot of visual clutter and frankly some confusion.

Go to Preferences > Settings and click on disable inlay hints. You can still see the types by hovering on the variables, which is sufficient.

Feel free to skip this if you like inlay type hints, of course.

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