Chapter 2: Basic Structure of a Rust Program

This chapter introduces the fundamental building blocks of a Rust program, drawing parallels and highlighting differences with C and other systems programming languages. While C programmers will recognize many syntactic elements, Rust introduces distinct concepts like ownership, strong static typing enforced by the compiler, and a powerful concurrency model—all designed to bolster memory safety and programmer expressiveness without sacrificing performance.

Throughout this overview, we’ll compare Rust’s syntax and conventions with those of C, using concise examples to illustrate key ideas. Readers with some prior exposure to Rust may choose to skim this chapter, though it offers a helpful summary of the language’s key concepts.

Later chapters will delve into each topic comprehensively. This initial tour aims to provide a general feel for the language, offer a starting point for experimentation, and demystify essential Rust features—such as the println! macro—that appear early on, before their formal explanation.