{ "created": "2026-10-10T12:41:55Z", "hierarchy": [ { "name": "ROOT", "type": "folder", "uri": "/ROOT" }, { "name": "Notes from Blog Engine Rewrite in Rust", "type": "article", "uri": "Notes_from_Blog_Engine_Rewrite_in_Rust" } ], "html": "Notes from Blog Engine Rewrite in Rust – Nikhil's Personal Wiki

Notes from Blog Engine Rewrite in Rust

\n

Motivation and Problems

\n

For the “Love of the Game”, the game being teaching myself enough Rust to have trenchant opinions on other languages. Things I’d like it to do:

\n
    \n
  • Markdown Rendering.
    \nThere’s CommonMark and GFM. I have special markup that will require me to extend these. Not sure if I’ll need both specs.
    • \n
  • TSX for templating.
    \nBecause I argue it’s the best templating language ever.
    • \n
  • SASS and Tailwind Rendering.
    \nUse grass for the former.
    • \n
  • Live-Reloading
    \nFor posts and all assets.
    • \n
  • Asset Management
    \nThumbnails, optimized WebP generation, folder organization.
    • \n
\n

Development Log (of sorts)

\n

Ah the famous learning curve. But you can be very productive with Rust if you know what to focus on. For baby Rustaceans like me who’re prototyping, the big things are:

\n
    \n
  • Not fighting the famed Borrow Checker
    • \n
  • Not using lifetimes as much as possible
    • \n
  • Just waving away any possible errors for now
    • \n
  • Knowing about and using popular libraries
    • \n
\n

That’s it. Concretely,

\n
    \n
  • clone and own everything to avoid fighting the borrow checker and dealing with explicit lifetimes.
    • \n
  • unwrap or expect to avoid handling the failure cases inside Result and Option.
    • \n
\n

I’ll add a few more:

\n
    \n
  • Use String instead of &str (avoids borrowing/owning)
    • \n
  • Use Vec<T> to get owned collections (avoids borrowing/owning)
    • \n
  • Use Arc<T> to share T across threads (avoids lifetimes)
    • \n
\n

So yeah, you’re side-stepping what makes Rust ‘great’ in the first place. But going back and dealing with these things is for the next iteration of your app. Super-easy to do so: grep for these things and work at them.

\n

Other Prototyping Shortcuts

\n
    \n
  • Use dbg! a lot.
    • \n
  • TODO: Complete this.
    • \n
\n

Datetime

\n

Rust’s STDLIB is as shit as Python’s with datetime manipulation (which is rather disappointing). Here’s things it can and cannot do:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
ActionCan it?
Current timestampYes
Measure elapsed timeYes
Add seconds to timestampYes
Get year/month/dayNo
Format as 2026-10-09No
Parse ISO 8601 datesNo
Time zonesNo
Calendar arithmeticNo
\n\n

Like Python you are expected to use richer libraries: chrono or jiff (I like the latter.)

\n

Strings

\n

Concatenation

\n

Just use format!(). Rust’s version of Python f-strings.

\n

Also, .display() returns &str and .to_str() returns Option<&str>. So you used:

\n
let pattern = format!("{}/**/*.md", content_dir.display());\n

Here’s some concatenation drama:

\n
let a = String::from("foo");\nlet s = a + "/bar";            // ok: String + &str\nlet s = "foo" + "bar";         // error: &str + &str\nlet s = "foo".to_owned() + "bar"; // ok\n

Miscellaneous

\n

HAD TO ENABLE “AUTO COMMENT BLOCKS” PLUGIN FOR FUCKING COMMENT CONTINUATIONS (and that too with Shift+Enter)

\n

References

\n\n
", "id": "31f81311-abf9-58e8-8990-56bf9faa1b32", "modified": "2026-10-10T12:41:55Z", "revisions": [ { "authorEmail": "anand.nikhil@gmail.com", "authorName": "afreeorange", "date": "2026-10-10T12:41:55Z", "id": "57fafb6fc2f430d74d08c50f0905ac62b7058229", "shortId": "57fafb6f", "subject": "More notes\n", "content": "\n\n## Motivation and Problems\n\nFor the \"Love of the Game\", the game being teaching myself enough Rust to have trenchant opinions on other languages. Things I'd like it to do:\n\n- **Markdown** Rendering.\n There's CommonMark and GFM. I have special markup that will require me to extend these. Not sure if I'll need _both_ specs.\n- **TSX** for templating.\n Because I argue it's the best templating language ever.\n- **SASS _and_ Tailwind** Rendering.\n Use `grass` for the former.\n- **Live-Reloading**\n For posts and all assets.\n- **Asset Management**\n Thumbnails, optimized WebP generation, folder organization.\n\n## Development Log (of sorts)\n\nAh the famous learning curve. But you can be very productive with Rust if you know what to focus on. For baby Rustaceans like me who're prototyping, the big things are:\n\n- Not fighting the famed Borrow Checker\n- Not using lifetimes as much as possible\n- Just waving away any possible errors for now\n- Knowing about and using popular libraries\n\nThat's it. Concretely,\n\n- `clone` and `own` everything to avoid fighting the borrow checker and dealing with explicit lifetimes.\n- `unwrap` or `expect` to avoid handling the failure cases inside `Result` and `Option`.\n\nI'll add a few more:\n\n- Use `String` instead of `&str` (avoids borrowing/owning)\n- Use `Vec` to get owned collections (avoids borrowing/owning)\n- Use `Arc` to share `T` across threads (avoids lifetimes)\n\nSo yeah, you're side-stepping what makes Rust 'great' in the first place. But going back and dealing with these things is for the next iteration of your app. Super-easy to do so: `grep` for these things and work at them.\n\n### Other Prototyping Shortcuts\n\n- Use `dbg!` a lot.\n- TODO: Complete this.\n\n### Datetime\n\nRust's STDLIB is as shit as Python's with datetime manipulation (which is rather disappointing). Here's things it can and cannot do:\n\n| Action | Can it? |\n| ------------------------ | ------- |\n| Current timestamp | Yes |\n| Measure elapsed time | Yes |\n| Add seconds to timestamp | Yes |\n| Get year/month/day | No |\n| Format as 2026-10-09 | No |\n| Parse ISO 8601 dates | No |\n| Time zones | No |\n| Calendar arithmetic | No |\n\nLike Python you are expected to use richer libraries: `chrono` or `jiff` (I like the latter.)\n\n## References\n\n- [Great explainer on Async Rust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXtngLBkK4Q)\n" } ], "sizeInBytes": 3139, "source": "\n\n## Motivation and Problems\n\nFor the \"Love of the Game\", the game being teaching myself enough Rust to have trenchant opinions on other languages. Things I'd like it to do:\n\n- **Markdown** Rendering.\n There's CommonMark and GFM. I have special markup that will require me to extend these. Not sure if I'll need _both_ specs.\n- **TSX** for templating.\n Because I argue it's the best templating language ever.\n- **SASS _and_ Tailwind** Rendering.\n Use `grass` for the former.\n- **Live-Reloading**\n For posts and all assets.\n- **Asset Management**\n Thumbnails, optimized WebP generation, folder organization.\n\n## Development Log (of sorts)\n\nAh the famous learning curve. But you can be very productive with Rust if you know what to focus on. For baby Rustaceans like me who're prototyping, the big things are:\n\n- Not fighting the famed Borrow Checker\n- Not using lifetimes as much as possible\n- Just waving away any possible errors for now\n- Knowing about and using popular libraries\n\nThat's it. Concretely,\n\n- `clone` and `own` everything to avoid fighting the borrow checker and dealing with explicit lifetimes.\n- `unwrap` or `expect` to avoid handling the failure cases inside `Result` and `Option`.\n\nI'll add a few more:\n\n- Use `String` instead of `&str` (avoids borrowing/owning)\n- Use `Vec` to get owned collections (avoids borrowing/owning)\n- Use `Arc` to share `T` across threads (avoids lifetimes)\n\nSo yeah, you're side-stepping what makes Rust 'great' in the first place. But going back and dealing with these things is for the next iteration of your app. Super-easy to do so: `grep` for these things and work at them.\n\n### Other Prototyping Shortcuts\n\n- Use `dbg!` a lot.\n- TODO: Complete this.\n\n### Datetime\n\nRust's STDLIB is as shit as Python's with datetime manipulation (which is rather disappointing). Here's things it can and cannot do:\n\n| Action | Can it? |\n| ------------------------ | ------- |\n| Current timestamp | Yes |\n| Measure elapsed time | Yes |\n| Add seconds to timestamp | Yes |\n| Get year/month/day | No |\n| Format as 2026-10-09 | No |\n| Parse ISO 8601 dates | No |\n| Time zones | No |\n| Calendar arithmetic | No |\n\nLike Python you are expected to use richer libraries: `chrono` or `jiff` (I like the latter.)\n\n## Strings\n\n### Concatenation\n\nJust use `format!()`. Rust's version of Python f-strings.\n\nAlso, `.display()` returns `&str` and `.to_str()` returns `Option<&str>`. So you used:\n\n```rust\nlet pattern = format!(\"{}/**/*.md\", content_dir.display());\n```\n\nHere's some concatenation drama:\n\n```rust\nlet a = String::from(\"foo\");\nlet s = a + \"/bar\"; // ok: String + &str\nlet s = \"foo\" + \"bar\"; // error: &str + &str\nlet s = \"foo\".to_owned() + \"bar\"; // ok\n```\n\n## Miscellaneous\n\nHAD TO ENABLE \"AUTO COMMENT BLOCKS\" PLUGIN FOR FUCKING COMMENT CONTINUATIONS (and that too with Shift+Enter)\n\n## References\n\n- [Great explainer on Async Rust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXtngLBkK4Q)\n- [FrontMatter parser](https://github.com/r7kamura/fronma) (really a wrapper)\n", "title": "Notes from Blog Engine Rewrite in Rust", "untracked": false, "uri": "/Notes_from_Blog_Engine_Rewrite_in_Rust", "relativePath": "Notes from Blog Engine Rewrite in Rust.md" }