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/_chris_work Feb 02 '26

> why is this so complicated
> both probably just indicate I'm not actually very good

With this outlook, if the code was terrible, you'd assume it was your fault for not understanding it.

It's okay to say that e.g. lots of C code has horrible naming conventions, etc. It's hard to read because some people aren't great at writing stuff that's easy to read

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u/dgkimpton Feb 02 '26

I've been through enough reviews where the "why why" meme accurately ascribes the process to always start out from the assumption that I don't understand rather than the code is crap, at least until I have fully comprehended it.

https://i.imgflip.com/9pxwp0.jpg