Rust for Freshmen
summary
Argues a freshman CS course can use Rust and demonstrates concrete curriculum choices: plain types and methods with i32/f32 types and C-style structs, behavior via traits and default methods, error workflows with Result error handling and unit-tested examples, and a linked-list implemented as an enum-based list with Box (forcing heap allocation). Notes missing pieces: immature GUI/animation, heavy Cargo reliance, and trait-object type erasure; prototype code and tests mostly work but tooling and pedagogic tradeoffs remain.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:03Goal
- 2:38Fundamentals of Computer Science II ("Fundies 2")
- 3:38Introduction to Rust
- 5:18Abstraction
- 11:26Error Handling
- 14:13Sameness of data
- 16:09Fixing our problems
- 17:25Honorable mentions
- 19:21Is this course viable?
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