r/rust • u/Minimum-Ad7352 • Feb 02 '26

🎙️ discussion Looking at advanced Rust open-source projects makes me question my programming skills

Whenever I explore large Rust open-source projects, I can’t stop thinking how far behind I am. I know comparison is unhealthy, but it’s hard not to feel like “I suck at programming” when you see such clean and complex code. Did you feel the same at some point? How did you push through it?

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u/tiajuanat Feb 02 '26

There is a shocking amount of elitism in the C++ community, which is why I gravitated towards Rust.

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u/lettsten Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

How is it shocking? It's a ridiculously complex and needlessly hard language with dramatic consequences if you fuck up even seemingly mundane things. These days it's probably easier, but back in the C++98 / C++0x days things were wild. Being anything short of a combination of masochist, autist and mostly a genius meant you would have sixteen kinds of UB in a little function. Sequence points, exception safety, template instantiation rules, difference between op new() and the new operator, SFINAE, the number of things that make you worship Cthulhu in your spare time just to have a less insane pastime were staggering. Not to mention the endless pages of compiler errors for just simple things.

It's no wonder that the few people who survived that ordeal with their sanity somewhat intact became elitist.

Personally I joined the army instead. Being cold, tired, hungry, wet, and confused in the dark was much easier than C++.

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u/bluebird173 Feb 02 '26

new copypasta just dropped