I just started delving into Rust last week with the release of the Rust Guide. In Web Development, I really have moved away from the “bare level” languages of my schooling into the flighty realm of scripting languages. For the most part, I’ve been quite satisfied to leave behind the rigors of memory management and obtuse C linking errors for PHP, JavaScript and Python.

Yet, Rust is the first systems language that really has gotten me excited to sit down and try it out. Maybe get back into the indie game scene (which I have been saying forever).

This post is going to be updated semi-regularly as just a continuing list of Rust resources worth looking into:

Learning the Language

• The Official Rust Guide
• Rust by Example
• Notes about Rust Modules
• Piston Tutorial
• This was quite buried in their repository. But it gives a good structure to get started.
• Piston Move Square Repository
• I learned a lot reading though this code on how to get things started with Piston.

Resources

• Piston Framework: A framework for making games with Rust
• Ncollide: A collision library for Rust
• GLFW: Not a rust resource, but a C library. Piston links to it so it seems relevant.
• How to Install GLFW-3: Since I couldn’t figure it out from GLFW’s documentation.
• Tepee - Rust HTTP Toolkit

Community

• #rust, #rust-gamedev, and #rust-webdev on irc.mozilla.org
• SubReddit for the Language
• SubReddit for Rust GameDev

TimeKeeper is a little utility tool that has become both a pet project for testing out new PHP and JavaScript tools as well as a very useful tool that I use every day to keep track of my billable hours, projects and tasks that are completed through out the day. An example of TimeKeeper in action can be found at timekeeper.kynda.net

This week, after a year of dormacy, I updated TimeKeeper to v0.1.1 with a major internal refactoring and improvement in the interface’s “responsiveness.” Major improvements include:

• The UI is now 100% responsive thanks to a rewrite of all templates to Bootstrap3
• Libraries now install via bower and composer
• Moved database configuration into a seperate config.php file, this along with the bower and composer updates makes installing TimeKeeper much easier
• 100% Documentation of all interfaces and files used by TimeKeeper

Future Plans

TimeKeeper’s direction is still rather vague. This is a useful tool for a single user to keep track of their own time. I am not yet sure if I want to keep it focused on being a planning tool for a single user or to expand TimeKeeper into a team-based tool.

The single biggest issue with TimeKeeper is that it does not provide a password-protected user log in which means that it cannot be public-facing or at least ends up relying on apache for user-login.

v0.2.0 RoadMap

For v0.2.0, which will be released “whenever,” I plan on adding the following features to TimeKeeper:

• Single-User Password Log In (so the site can be public-facing)
• A Reports table that generates a variety of charts analyzing the filtered time frame including: break down of 100% time spent per project or billable hours; daily break down showing hours worked and whether they went over or under 40 hours; Perhaps a monthly report as well.
• 100% Test coverage

The following sketches are from my field notebook. They were done while taking a native plants class with Klara Varga in Jackson Hole. In particular, these plants were all found growing along the roadway through the Elk Refuge.