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Contributing to the Rust Cookbook
The cookbook needs contributors and is intended to be easy to contribute to. Help is welcome.
Building and testing
To start, clone the cookbook from git and navigate to that directory:
git clone https://github.com/brson/rust-cookbook.git
cd rust-cookbook
Cookbook is built with mdbook, so install that first with cargo:
cargo install mdbook
And then build:
mdbook build
The output will be in the book/ directory. You can open it from
there in a web browser.
All examples in the cookbook are tested with skeptic, a tool for testing arbitrary markdown documentation in a style similar to rustdoc.
To run the cookbook test suite:
cargo test
Finding what to contribute
This project is intended to be simple to contribute to, and to always have obvious next work items available. If at any time there is not something obvious to contribute, that is a bug. Please ask for assistance on the [libz blitz] thread, or email Brian Anderson directly (banderson@mozilla.com).
The development process for the cookbook is presently oriented around crates: we decide which crates to represent in the cookbook, then come up with example use cases to write, then write the examples. And those are the three basic, recurring types of contributions needed.
The development process for the cookbook today is tied to the [libz blitz], a broader project to improve the Rust crate ecosystem, and the cookbook presently represents the crates under consideration there. The easiest way to find the most immediate work needed for the cookbook is to follow the "What's next" section at the top of that thread, which should at all times link to something to contribute to the cookbook.
Otherwise, look on the issue tracker for the [crate-tasks] tag. These contain checklists of the examples we want to provide for individual crates. The simplest way to contribute is to claim one of these examples, and submit a PR adding it. If you do claim one, please leave a comment saying so, so others don't accidentally duplicate your work.
If you have an idea for an example for a specific crate, please suggest it on those issues.
Please do not submit examples for crates not yet represented in the coobook, unless it is part of the libz blitz crate schedule. Contribution will be open to a broader set of crates in the future. For more about which crates are represented in the cookbook, see "a note about crate representation" in the cookbok.
Adding an example
Adding an example involves:
- Deciding which section of the book it belongs in
- Deciding which categories apply to it
- Adding the example to a the section index in intro.md
- Adding the example to the appropriate section markdown file
- Updating 'badges' and hyperlinks as needed
- Writing a useful description of the example
Examples are presently organized in three ways:
- Book sections - the cookbook is a book, and is organized like a book in logical sections, like "basics", "serialization", "concurrency".
- Category tags - each example is tagged with one or more category tags, like "math", "file-io".
- Crate tags - each example is tagged with one or more crate tags, indicating which crates are represented in the example. Those that use no additional crates are simply tagged 'std'.
For more about the organization of the book see ["how to read this book"] in the cookbook.
Hopefully your example belongs to an obvious section and categories, but since the cookbook is so new, quite possibly not. Ask on thread.
For most steps you can simply follow the lead of existing examples. The art comes in writing effective examples.
Example guidelines
Examples in the cookbook have these goals and qualities:
- They can described by a single sentence that states their utility
- They can be read and understood by complete beginners
- They are standalone examples that can be copied into a learners' own workspace and compiled and modified for experimentation
- They demonstrate real tasks, such that experienced developers can use as a reference
- They follow best practices and do not take shortcuts
- They use consistent error handling
Examples should have a simple single-sentence title that describes something a typical Rust user typically wants to do.
Example are intended to be read by complete beginners, and copied into projects for experimentation. They should follow best practices and not take shortcuts.
The example should have minimal code that doesn't directly support the description of the example. Keep extra functions and types to a minimum.
Follow the error handling templates in "A note about error
handling". Examples always set up error handling correctly and
propagate errors with ? (not try!).
Don't use glob imports, even for preludes, so that users can see what traits they are calling. (Some might consider using glob imports for preludes a best practice, making this awkward).
Sort imports.
Examples should be simple and obvious enough that an experienced dev won't need comments. Describe the code in prose, not in comments. Things that should be described include traits imported and their methods used. Think about what information here supports the use case and might not be obvious to someone new. Say the minimum possible about aspects that don't directly support the use case. See "basics" for examples.
Hyperlink all references to APIs, either on doc.rust-lang.org/std or
docs.rs, and style them as code.
Finally, this book is intended to also demonstrate the integration of crates that work well together. Super bonus points for examples that feature multiple crates sensibly.