Short Course on Rust for Python Programmers

Class Duration

21 hours of live training delivered over 3-5 days to accommodate your scheduling needs.

Student Prerequisites

Strong working proficiency in Python
Comfort with type hints, packaging, and the command line
No prior Rust experience required

Target Audience

Python developers who need a fast, focused on-ramp to Rust on the 2024 edition. Designed for engineers building performance-critical services, native Python extensions, CLIs, or memory-safe replacements for legacy components — and for ML/data engineers shipping LLM applications who need a fast, safe runtime for the parts of the system Python isn't well suited to.

Description

This short course gets Python developers productive in Rust on the 2024 edition (Rust 1.85 introduced the edition; 1.95+ recommended for the current toolchain) in three days. Every concept is introduced in contrast with the Python equivalent: ownership vs. reference counting, Result/Option vs. exceptions, traits vs. protocols, async/await on Tokio vs. asyncio, monomorphized generics vs. duck typing. The course closes with the workflow most Python teams adopt Rust for: a small PyO3 + Maturin extension that takes a hot path, rewrites it in Rust, and ships it as a wheel. Throughout, students use AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as senior engineers do in 2026 — with the compiler and clippy as the source of truth.

Learning Outcomes

Read and write idiomatic Rust on the 2024 edition with confidence in ownership and borrowing.
Translate Python idioms to Rust and vice versa, knowing where each language is the right tool.
Build a small CLI or library crate with Cargo, including dependencies, tests, and documentation.
Use traits, generics, and pattern matching where Python developers reach for protocols, duck typing, and match statements.
Get an honest first taste of async/await on Tokio.
Use AI coding assistants effectively for Rust while letting the compiler, clippy, and tests catch what AI gets wrong.

Training Materials

All students receive comprehensive courseware covering all topics in the course. Courseware is distributed via GitHub in the form of documentation and extensive code samples. Students practice the topics covered through challenging hands-on lab exercises that build directly on Python idioms.

Software Requirements

A free GitHub account, the latest stable Rust toolchain installed via rustup (Rust 1.95+ on the 2024 edition), Python 3.12+, Visual Studio Code or another supported editor with the rust-analyzer extension, and an AI coding assistant of choice (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Claude Code). A cloud-based environment can be provided if local installation is restricted.

Training Topics

Introduction: Rust from a Python Perspective

What Rust is and where it fits relative to Python
Rust 2024 edition: what's new and why it matters
Rust vs. Python: type system, runtime, packaging, performance
The Rust ecosystem and community

Toolchain and Editor Setup

Installing Rust with rustup
cargo vs. pip/poetry/uv: similarities and differences
VS Code, JetBrains RustRover, and Zed with rust-analyzer
AI assistants for Rust: Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code

Cargo and Crates

cargo new, cargo run, cargo build, cargo test
Cargo.toml and dependencies vs. pyproject.toml
Workspaces and cargo publish --workspace
Popular crates: serde, tokio, reqwest, sqlx, anyhow, thiserror

Rust vs. Python: A Working Map

Static typing vs. dynamic typing
Memory management: ownership vs. reference counting + GC
Errors: Result/Option vs. exceptions
Iteration: iterators vs. generators
Classes vs. structs + impls
Protocols vs. traits
Concurrency: GIL + asyncio vs. fearless concurrency + Tokio

Scalar Types, Control Flow, and Functions

Integers, floats, booleans, characters
Constants and statics
if/else as expressions, loop, while, for
2024-edition let-chains in if and while
Functions, closures, and capture modes

Modules and Built-In Macros

Module hierarchy with mod and use
Importing from the standard library and crates.io
print!, println!, format!, dbg!, vec!, assert!

Memory Management and Ownership

Ownership, moves, copies
Borrowing: &T and &mut T
Lifetimes and the borrow checker
Box, Rc, Arc at a glance
Common Python-developer pitfalls

Strings, Tuples, Enums, Structs, Vectors

String vs. &str
Tuples and tuple structs
Enums with associated data, Option<T>, Result<T, E>
Structs, methods, associated functions, constructors
Vec, slices, and the iterator combinators Python developers will love

Traits, Generics, and Pattern Matching

Defining and implementing traits
Generics, bounds, and where clauses
Static vs. dynamic dispatch
match, if let, while let, 2024 let-chains
Destructuring nested data

Async at a Glance

async/await from a Python asyncio perspective
Tokio runtime fundamentals
2024-edition async closures
Send/Sync and 'static bounds in async code

AI-Assisted Rust Development for Python Engineers

The 2026 AI-coding-tool landscape and how Python developers use it for Rust
Prompts that work well for Rust ownership and lifetimes
Letting the compiler, clippy, and tests catch what AI gets wrong
Reviewing AI-generated unsafe, unwrap, and reflexive Arc<Mutex<T>>

Conclusion

Course wrap-up and recommended next steps (Rust for Python Programmers, High Performance Python with Rust, Mastering Rust)