Microsoft's Take your first steps with Rust is a free course on Microsoft Learn teaching Rust fundamentals. You learn syntax, ownership, error handling, and the Rust toolchain. After finishing, you understand Rust's core concepts and can write basic programs. Microsoft is investing in Rust and encourages its use in performance-critical systems. Rust is increasingly popular for systems programming and safety-critical code. The main limitation: Rust is complex. The ownership model is unintuitive at first. This course is a foundation; mastery requires practice.
Rust adoption is growing fastest among compiled languages, and Microsoft and Google are increasing Rust use in their systems (source: GitHub Octoverse and Stack Overflow Developer Survey).
About This Course
Microsoft Learn's official getting-started path for Rust. Covers fundamental syntax, the ownership model, common collections, error handling, and modules. Browser-based exercises and knowledge checks throughout. Free with a Microsoft achievement.
Course Details
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Microsoft's Rust course free?
Yes, completely free on Microsoft Learn.
Do I need programming experience?
Yes, basic programming in another language helps. Rust is not a first language.
What makes Rust hard?
The ownership and borrowing model are unfamiliar. Rust enforces memory safety at compile time, which requires rethinking how you write code.
Is Rust practical or academic?
Practical. Rust is used in real systems (Linux kernel, Firefox, Discord). Learning it is an investment in practical skills.
After this course, what's next?
The official Rust Book (free online) and building projects. Write a CLI tool or contribute to open-source Rust projects.
More rust Courses
freeCodeCamp's full-length Rust course covering syntax, ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, structs, enums, error handling, and concurrency. Build CLI tools and small projects to internalise Rust's memory model. Completely free on YouTube.
Google's free 4-day Rust course taught internally to Android engineers. Covers core Rust through bare-metal and concurrency in depth, plus Android-specific modules. Slides, speaker notes, and exercises are all open source. One of the most thorough free Rust resources available.