Hello, Rust: Your First Program

This is the first post in a series about basic Rust. Rust is a systems language focused on memory safety, speed, and fearless concurrency — and its compiler is famous for catching bugs before they run.

Install Rust with rustup#

The official way to install Rust is rustup, which manages toolchains:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

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After it finishes, reload your shell and verify:

rustc --version
cargo --version

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Your first program#

Create a new project with Cargo, Rust’s build system and package manager:

cargo new hello_rust
cd hello_rust

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Cargo generates src/main.rs with a ready-made program:

src/main.rs

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}

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Run it#

cargo run

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Output:

Hello, world!

text

What each part does#

fn main() — the entry point where every Rust program starts.
println! — a macro (note the !) that prints a line of text to the console.
cargo new — creates the project with a Cargo.toml manifest.
cargo run — compiles and runs the program.

Try cargo build to only compile, and cargo check to check for errors quickly without producing a binary.

Formatting and linting#

Rust ships with two tools:

cargo fmt # formats your code
cargo clippy # catches common mistakes

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Run them on every project. The compiler itself is also a great teacher — read its error messages carefully.

Conclusion#

You installed Rust, created a project with Cargo, and ran your first program. Next in this series: variables and data types.

Install Rust with rustup#

Your first program#

Run it#

What each part does#

Formatting and linting#

Conclusion#

References#