Introduce Rust guide #732
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Introduce Rust guide #732
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TallJimbo
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Oct 9, 2025
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TallJimbo
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Two big-picture comments (some echoed in various line-comments):
- I think you need to mention
rubinoxideup front concretely and organize the discussion around that; only talking about organizing code in a purely abstract sense makes the actual guidelines a lot harder to follow. - There are a lot of start-of-section sentences here that just sound like software platitudes. I understand wanting to have some sort of introductory text for each section, but I think the audience (who is likely reading it as fast as they can so they can get back to writing code) will appreciate it if you just dive right in.
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nealmcb
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Dec 10, 2025
| 4. Code Organization | ||
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| Unlike the package-centric organization often seen in Python, packages containing rust code should me monolithic and not depend on other lsst packages. |
| The de-facto location, and reference implementation, of rust within the lsst science pipelines is in a package called ``rubinoxide``. | ||
| This does not mean developers are not allowed to use rust in another dedicated package, but unless there is a compelling reason to do so rust code should be placed in ``rubinoxide``. | ||
| This guide assumes the package layout of ``rubinoxide``. | ||
| Any other Rust based packages that are written should adhear to this as best as possible. |
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| * Rust packages should be built using maturin, which manages the complexities of compiling and bundling cargo products. | ||
| * Cargo additionally is to be used manage dependencies and run rust level tests. | ||
| * pip is used as the mechanism to locally depoly the wheels created by maturin |
taranu
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Dec 17, 2025
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taranu
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This guide seems written for an audience that has decided to add new rust code. It needs content for developers who barely know anything about rust and:
- want to know what functionality is available and where/how it can/should be used
- might one day have to review a ticket with (slightly) non-trivial rust changes
Some of this is covered by the Introduction, Resources and Code Organization sections, but not entirely. For example, say I need some performant vectorized code for numpy arrays. Should I look to numpy first? If scipy/astropy has what I need, should I also check rubinoxide for relevant functions first and benchmark them?
Similarly, what does leverage its memory safety features mean? Writing only code without unsafe?
| These tests should be placed in the **tests** top level directory. | ||
| * pytest: Use pytest as the python testing framework. | ||
| * For functionality that does not have a public python api, or is not well covered by a python api, or is difficult to appropriately test with a python unit test rust unit tests may be written using the standard rust unit test infrastructure. | ||
| Genreally avoid a rust until test on any code that is wrapped with pyo3. |
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typos: Generally, unit test
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| Consistent code style improves readability and maintainability. | ||
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| * `rustfmt`_: Use rustfmt to automatically format your Rust code. |
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Are these recommendations or requirements?
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| * Do not use implicit multithreading in rust | ||
| * Do not introduce any cross package rust bindings that transit through python aka how we use c++ now. | ||
| * As mentioned above, do not arange module structure according to lsst packages. Write modules by related functionality. |
| * Cargo additionally is to be used manage dependencies and run rust level tests. | ||
| * pip is used as the mechanism to locally depoly the wheels created by maturin | ||
| * pytest is used to run python level unit tests | ||
| * coordinating these scripts for the developer is a Makefile |
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Is make really the best option here?
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This is a first draft of the proposed rust developer guide. All comments and improvement welcome.