Explain that Rust has different pointer types because there is a
tradeoff between flexibility and efficiency. Motivate boxes as
fixed-size containers of variable-sized objects. Clarify that Box and Rc
are pointer types that you deref with * just like references. Stick to
explaining the semantics and avoid implementation details. Scope isn't
the most accurate framework to think about deallocation (since you
return boxes and otherwise move values out of scopes); it's more "when
the value is done being used," i.e., lifetime. Provide a connection
between Rust's pointer types by locating them on a flexibiltiy /
performance scale. Explain the compiler can't statically analyze
lifetimes with multiple owners; hence the need for (runtime) reference
counting.
This should be clearer, and fits in better with the `TTNonterminal` variant.
Renames:
- `TTTok` -> `TTToken`
- `TTDelim` -> `TTDelimited`
- `TTSeq` -> `TTSequence`
Explain the primary disadvantage of garbage collection is runtime
overhead and unpredictable pauses. Elucidate where the name "race
condition" comes from. Emphasize that Rust can guarantee your code is
free of race conditions and other memory errors, with no runtime
overhead.
cc @steveklabnik
This patch contains a fix for:
- single quote around string slice
- string: String is confusing for newbies and it's more readble if the
argument name is different that the argument type name
Explain the primary disadvantage of garbage collection is runtime
overhead and unpredictable pauses. Elucidate where the name "race
condition" comes from. Emphasize that Rust can guarantee your code is
free of race conditions and other memory errors, with no runtime
overhead.
This is an almost-done draft of a guide on crates and modules. This is a hard guide to get right, I had to remove a chunk of the Guide because it was confusing.
I've also pushed up https://github.com/steveklabnik/phrases which has matching code. Whenever we finish this guide, I think it'd be good to have a sample crate like this in the rust-lang org for people to compare against. The hardest part of a guide like this is that it depends on multiple files being correct, and being able to point to a repository would be very helpful.
Things yet to do:
1. external crates via cargo
2. documentation
I'm super open to still revising this if it's still confusing. There's been a lot of Reddit discussion about the module system, and I tried to incorporate those posts and the comments into this.
Use a match expression directly in the println statement, instead of creating a second variable. It seems weird that the current guide.md complains about creating an extra variable, when the same feature could be demonstrated without creating the extra variable.
The array is the fundamental concept; vectors are growable arrays, and
slices are views into either. Show common array ops up front: length
and iteration. Mention arrays are immutable by default. Highlight
definite initialization and bounds-checking as safety features. Show
that you only need a type suffix on one element of initializers.
Explain that vectors are a value-add library type over arrays, not a
fundamental type; show they have the same "interface." Motivate slices
as efficient views into arrays; explain you can slice vectors, Strings,
&str because they're backed by arrays.
