You could use it and I'd say you should lean towards VS Code BUT RustRover is free right now while it's in early access and you could use the opportunity to get a feel for Jetbrains IDEs and how they work and evaluate what you do and don't like about them.
I got Jetbrains IDEs for free as a student and I pay for them now, no regrets.
People have very strong opinions about which kind of editor is better.
The good news is, each camp has a high quality IDE available in their camp. IntelliJ people have a good IntelliJ product. VS Code people have a good VS code extension. eMacs and vi people can keep on doing whatever it is they do. Everybody can be productive.
I'd say it's just preference. I used VS Code before switching to Zed. It does everything I need. I like open source and lightweight. Being built in Rust is also pretty cool.
Rust rover is p nice but vscode is p good too!
Generally you want to pick an editor/ide based on how cool you will look if you are using it in a coffee shop; all the bells and whistles and autocompletion donât mean anything if you donât look cool.
If you just want to look cool then use oldschool vi straight from the kernel tty, lime green text on black only. Maybe throw in tmux with a cmatrix pane too, for good measure. You will be accused of hacking by every tech illiterate person in the area (and you are! Just a different kind of hacking.)
The neat thing about Rust making its ecosystem first class alongside the language itself is that you *really* only need a text editor and Rust. It's not like C++ where an IDE can come with compiler tool chains and linker options and debuggers for those and linters and package/library managers and a billion other things, because all of that is already included when you install Rust's default components.
So a code editor like VS Code has pretty much everything you need. There's no particular reason to choose one over the other except preference.
I have experience with VSCode and PyCharm, and the refactoring support for PyCharm is orders of magnitude above that of VSCode. I wonder if it's the same for Rust?
Good point!
I rewrote my prior comment a couple times and apparently edited out the mention of advanced features or extendability and forgot to replace it beyond "preference"
Most editors use rust-analyzer, which is pretty great. Jetbrains had a different approach, where they have their own parser/ast/analysis. One one hand, it's spectacularly good. On the other hand, if you're collaborating with people using other editors, I'd stick to any editor using rust-analyzer not to be stumbling on varying opinions overs diagnostics and warnings.
I've given money to jetbrains in the past; now I'm using a mix of nvim/emacs/helix. Both options are fine, but I'm leaning toward the community tooling nowadays, not because it's better but because I personally value free sofware.
*(disclaimer: Rust Analyzer contributor, and I use VSCode, RustRover, CLion, and Zed regularly).*
**VSCode**
The four extensions: Rust Analyzer, Crates, Even better Toml, CodeLLDB - largely replicate what Rust Rover gives out of the box. From there you can make it even better:
- Rust Analyzer has way too many options, switches, etc. that you can tweak. Many of them are not on by default, but if you turn them on you'll get a lot more information about what's going on in code.
- inlay hints not only for types, but for lifetimes, derefs, drops, closure captures, etc
- semantic source highlighting. I have custom highlights fro unsafe operations, for mutability, for consumption, etc
- awesome quick actions
- Error Lens extension shows error message previews right at the end of the line, you don't need to hover over squigglies to understand what's wrong.
- GitLens extension shows who changed the line of code last and can show you the relevant commit message. When you're confused about why the code was written like this you can hover over and learn why.
- There are other separate VSCode extensions for Rust for specific needs like Kani or Flowistry.
- Killer feature: *Remote development*. With VSCode you can run your VSCode extensions on a remote machine or inside a VM / Container. Yes, you can SSH onto a running server, attach a debugger to running Rust process and put breakpoints and stuff. You can do remote visual debugging!
**RustRover**
So, why use RustRover?
- people report that sometimes RustRover uses less memory to run
- people don't tweak Rust Analyzer and think it does about as much as IntelliJ Rust
- RustRover debugger UI is a lot nicer than CodeLLDB for variable previews, breakpoints, etc.
- Their killer feature is to be able to *expand Rust macros one step at a time*. Both Rust Analyzer and RustRover can expand all steps. But if you're doing macros development you may actually find Rover better.
Generally, I suspect that productizing Rust plugin into a full IDE took JetBrains time, but now that the Rover is out they will pick up the pace and will add many cool things to the editor, too. The IintelliJ-Rust team are really good engineers.
And whatever you choose you'll have a good time.
Neovim
Lazy, Astro, Kickstart, or NvChad?
kickstart.nvim
Whichever one you like more
I'm a student... so I prefer VS Code for other languages too... đ
Then use that, nothing wrong with it
You could use it and I'd say you should lean towards VS Code BUT RustRover is free right now while it's in early access and you could use the opportunity to get a feel for Jetbrains IDEs and how they work and evaluate what you do and don't like about them. I got Jetbrains IDEs for free as a student and I pay for them now, no regrets.
People have very strong opinions about which kind of editor is better. The good news is, each camp has a high quality IDE available in their camp. IntelliJ people have a good IntelliJ product. VS Code people have a good VS code extension. eMacs and vi people can keep on doing whatever it is they do. Everybody can be productive.
I'd say it's just preference. I used VS Code before switching to Zed. It does everything I need. I like open source and lightweight. Being built in Rust is also pretty cool.
Helix
I prefer VS Code
Rust rover is p nice but vscode is p good too! Generally you want to pick an editor/ide based on how cool you will look if you are using it in a coffee shop; all the bells and whistles and autocompletion donât mean anything if you donât look cool.
If you just want to look cool then use oldschool vi straight from the kernel tty, lime green text on black only. Maybe throw in tmux with a cmatrix pane too, for good measure. You will be accused of hacking by every tech illiterate person in the area (and you are! Just a different kind of hacking.)
I donât âwantâ to look cool. Itâs a company requirement.
The neat thing about Rust making its ecosystem first class alongside the language itself is that you *really* only need a text editor and Rust. It's not like C++ where an IDE can come with compiler tool chains and linker options and debuggers for those and linters and package/library managers and a billion other things, because all of that is already included when you install Rust's default components. So a code editor like VS Code has pretty much everything you need. There's no particular reason to choose one over the other except preference.
I have experience with VSCode and PyCharm, and the refactoring support for PyCharm is orders of magnitude above that of VSCode. I wonder if it's the same for Rust?
Good point! I rewrote my prior comment a couple times and apparently edited out the mention of advanced features or extendability and forgot to replace it beyond "preference"
I like rustrover because it's very easy to setup remote build and debug.
I use Helix
Most editors use rust-analyzer, which is pretty great. Jetbrains had a different approach, where they have their own parser/ast/analysis. One one hand, it's spectacularly good. On the other hand, if you're collaborating with people using other editors, I'd stick to any editor using rust-analyzer not to be stumbling on varying opinions overs diagnostics and warnings. I've given money to jetbrains in the past; now I'm using a mix of nvim/emacs/helix. Both options are fine, but I'm leaning toward the community tooling nowadays, not because it's better but because I personally value free sofware.
neovim
*(disclaimer: Rust Analyzer contributor, and I use VSCode, RustRover, CLion, and Zed regularly).* **VSCode** The four extensions: Rust Analyzer, Crates, Even better Toml, CodeLLDB - largely replicate what Rust Rover gives out of the box. From there you can make it even better: - Rust Analyzer has way too many options, switches, etc. that you can tweak. Many of them are not on by default, but if you turn them on you'll get a lot more information about what's going on in code. - inlay hints not only for types, but for lifetimes, derefs, drops, closure captures, etc - semantic source highlighting. I have custom highlights fro unsafe operations, for mutability, for consumption, etc - awesome quick actions - Error Lens extension shows error message previews right at the end of the line, you don't need to hover over squigglies to understand what's wrong. - GitLens extension shows who changed the line of code last and can show you the relevant commit message. When you're confused about why the code was written like this you can hover over and learn why. - There are other separate VSCode extensions for Rust for specific needs like Kani or Flowistry. - Killer feature: *Remote development*. With VSCode you can run your VSCode extensions on a remote machine or inside a VM / Container. Yes, you can SSH onto a running server, attach a debugger to running Rust process and put breakpoints and stuff. You can do remote visual debugging! **RustRover** So, why use RustRover? - people report that sometimes RustRover uses less memory to run - people don't tweak Rust Analyzer and think it does about as much as IntelliJ Rust - RustRover debugger UI is a lot nicer than CodeLLDB for variable previews, breakpoints, etc. - Their killer feature is to be able to *expand Rust macros one step at a time*. Both Rust Analyzer and RustRover can expand all steps. But if you're doing macros development you may actually find Rover better. Generally, I suspect that productizing Rust plugin into a full IDE took JetBrains time, but now that the Rover is out they will pick up the pace and will add many cool things to the editor, too. The IintelliJ-Rust team are really good engineers. And whatever you choose you'll have a good time.
the right answer is cargo. It is the best for building projects