#1 Setting Up The Rust Development Environment | Minimalist Text Editor in Rust Programming Language | Rust & Tauri Development Tutorial

Rust is a Systems Programming Language which has become famous in the recent years because of it’s

Low level capabilities,
Comparable Speed to other Low Level programming language like C, C++
Excellent Memory Safety
And all in all the ability Rust gives of being able to write Safe Code using it.

In this Article Series, we will be taking a look at

How we can create a Simple Minimalist Text Editor in Rust Programming Language

so that we can understand the workings of the language

while also developing a complete product that someone can use if they want.

In this Article, we will look at

Installing Rust Programming Language to your computer
Updating Rust after it has been Installed
Uninstalling Rust and Rustup if you so want to
And Setting Up Visual Studio Code with Extensions for Rust Programming Language

So that even those who are not familiar with programming in general, can follow along without a problem.

I’ll also be posting links to all the articles below so that you can find them easily.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

This Article is part of Minimalist Text Editor Using Rust and Tauri Tutorial Series

Minimalist Text Editor in Rust Programming Language & Tauri - #1 Setting Up The Development Environment - Rust & Tauri Tutorial - Featured Image

Step 1 – Installing Rust Programming Language To Your Computer | Rust Tutorial

The first thing that we will need to do is download Rustup from the Official Rust Programming Language Website

(I’ve also linked both the versions below)

Official Download Links for Windows from Rust Website

Rustup 32-Bit
Rustup 64-Bit

which will then be used to download and install the required packages.

For Mac OS, Linux, Windows Subsystem for Linux, or other UNIX based operating System,

you can run the following command in the Terminal

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

which will download the shell file for Rustup

And then you can follow on with the instructions that you receive to install Rust on your system.

You might need to install cURL if it is not installed on your system.

After you have downloaded and installed Rust using Rustup,

As a final step, you might also be asked to install Visual Studio C++ Build Tools, if it’s not already installed.

You can download the C++ Build Tools from Visual Studio’s Website linked below.

Visual Studio C++ Build Tools

and install it to fulfill that requirement.

With that, you have successfully Downloaded and Installed Rust and all it’s Dependencies

that you needs to develop software using Rust on your computer. (Hooray! :p)

Checking If Rust Has Been Installed Correctly

To check if everything is installed correctly, you can go to your Terminal

which in case of windows is your CMD or Powershell or any other Terminal that you use.

and type the command below

rustc --version

if it prints out the Version Number with an Commit Hash and Commit Date like

rustc 1.61.0 (fe5b13d68 2022-05-18)

Then, Rust has been installed correctly on your system.

How to Update Rust Programming Language

To Update Rust in the future, you can go to your Terminal

and type the command below

rustup update

If there is a newer version, it will update Rust on your system.

How to Uninstall Rust Programming Language

To Uninstall Rust Programming Language from your system, you can go to the Terminal

and type the command below

rustup self uninstall

This will uninstall the Rust Programming Language and Rustup from your System

Step 2 – Setting up Visual Studio Code with Extensions for Rust Programming Language | Rust Tutorial

Now, I personally use VS Code as my Code Editor for Rust and also for any other languages.

But that does not mean Rust is only supported by VS Code.

Rust Programming Language has support in 7 Code Editors and IDEs given below

So, you can choose whichever one you like.

I’ll be moving further thinking that you are using VS Code just like me.

Now, the first thing that you need to do is to Update VS Code

because there is a high chance that you will receive error while installing Extensions otherwise.

You can do this by going to and clicking on Title Bar -> Help -> Check For Updates

Will waiting for VS Code to update, you need to understand why we are installing these extensions,

By Default, VS Code doesn’t support the Rust Programming Language or TOML (Tom’s Obvious Minimal Language), so to get all the

Code Highlighting
Code Completion
IntelliSense
Debugging Capabilities
Dependency Version Information
and more

required for an ideal Software Development experience, we will need to install multiple Extensions / Plugins.

With VS Code updated, we are going to install 5 Extensions / Plugins linked below

Mandatory Extensions

Optional Extensions

Crates
Error Lens

Now we don’t need to use the links, i’ve given them only if you want to download the Extension File (.vsix) to your computer.

We will be installing these 5 Extensions directly through the Extensions Tab which you can find on the left side panel in VS Code.

Just go to the Extensions Tab and then in the Search Bar type the Extension Name, click on the appropriate result and install the Extension.