One new ecosystem a year, with no professional obligation

I never needed Rust or Go on a billed engagement. I learned them anyway, as part of what now feels like a habit: one new ecosystem a year, with no professional obligation behind it.

Why not just read the docs

I tried the classic method (documentation, tutorials, small exercises) and it never sticks for me over time. What works is forcing myself to build something structured enough to actually run into the language's real difficulties, not just its syntax.

learning-rust came out of that constraint: sixteen tested examples, from sequential code to async, clippy-clean from the first to the last. Each example exists because a language concept (ownership, lifetimes, Send/Sync) only becomes real once you hit a concrete bug caused by it.

The teaching detour

With go-primer, I pushed it one step further: instead of just learning Go for myself, I structured the learning into modules and lessons, as if I had to teach it to someone else. Explaining a concept forces you to fill gaps in your own understanding that you didn't know you had. It's probably the most effective method I've found to actually learn, not just to know how to use something.

What it changes on client work

It's no coincidence that this reflex mirrors what I do professionally with living documentation or hexagonal architectures: the same discipline of understanding deeply before shipping fast applies, whether it's for a critical banking system or an evening's teaching example.