If you have ever fought the Rust borrow checker over perfectly safe code, you know the struggle is real. Things are about to change. Rust’s borrow checker keeps our code safe from memory bugs, and we all love it. Sometimes the current version, Non-Lexical Lifetimes (NLL), is just a bit too strict. It can throw errors on code that is completely fine.

That is where Polonius comes in. It is the next generation of the borrow checker, and it is now enabled by default on Rust Nightly.

I wanted to see this in action, so I put it to the test. I was getting my morning espresso when I ran a minimalistic reborrow function with an if true statement. I ran the exact same safe code with the two different borrow checkers. With the stable compiler, it threw the classic “cannot borrow as mutable more than once at a time” error. Then I ran it on Nightly with Polonius, and it compiled perfectly. It honestly looked like witchcraft.

I also tested a bigger example using a HashMap and mutable references with Some and None branches. NLL hates this pattern and complains about multiple mutable borrows. Polonius easily follows the real control flow paths. It understands that the initial reference is no longer alive in the None branch, allowing the code to compile without weird workarounds.

Polonius Alpha is still in alpha, so it does more precise analysis, which means the compiler has to do a little more work. There are some compile-time performance regressions, but benchmarks show they are typically minimal. Touching a core part of compiler mechanics like the borrow checker is a brave move. It shows the Rust project team is prioritizing correctness over pure compilation speed.

Watch the full 10-minute video breakdown on YouTube here to see the code in action:

If you want to read more about the technical details behind this update, check out the official Rust blog post.

I’m sending this special newsletter because soemthing important is happening on my channel. I’m officially starting a new video series about Topcoat, the batteries-included Rust web framework created by the team behind Tokio and Axum.

I’m genuinely excited about this project. Topcoat combines server-side rendering, reactive components, module-based routing, UI components, Tailwind support, and even hot reload, while keeping the application almost entirely in Rust.

In the featured video, I build my first Topcoat application and share my honest first impressions. It is still very early, and breaking changes are expected, but the developer experience already looks surprisingly promising.

Start here: my first hands-on experience

For more context, I also spoke with Carl Lerche and Julien Scholz about why they created Topcoat and where they want to take it:

Watch the introduction to Topcoat:

Tomorrow, I’ll continue experimenting with it live. Set your reminder:

👉 Join the Topcoat livestream:

I’m happy to finally start this series, and I’d genuinely like to know what you think.

Does Topcoat look like something you would use? What should I test or build next?

That means one thing: a lot more content.

I’ll be publishing more videos, experimenting with new AI tools, and, most importantly, going live much more often.

New Video: Building an AI Meeting Workflow with Rust

A few days ago, I published a new project that I’m really happy with.

In this video, I build an end-to-end AI meeting workflow using Rust, Axum, Next.js, and Cronofy.

The application connects to a real calendar, finds available meeting slots, creates calendar events, generates Google Meet links, dispatches an AI meeting agent, and retrieves transcripts and meeting summaries. Instead of implementing calendar providers, scheduling logic, conferencing integrations, and time zone handling from scratch, the project uses Cronofy as the infrastructure layer.

If you’re interested in building production-ready Rust applications that integrate with real-world services, I think you’ll enjoy this one.

Live Today: Rust, Axum & Grok

Since I’ll be at home for the incredible span of 4 weeks, I’ll be going live and recording videos much more often (I mean more often than usual).

We start today at 6 PM CEST with my favorite topic: Rust and Web Development.

Back in 2022, when I started creating content about Rust and web development, this was a super niche topic. But lately, especially with the rise of AI models that make many implementation details almost trivial, it’s become one of the most requested topics on my channel.

So here we go: a whole month of Rust and web development! We’ll talk about project structure, crates, the best (and worst) frameworks to use, and of course we’ll build real projects using the latest AI models (and, of course, Zerops).

Today, 6pm cest, we will focus on Grok 4.5 and Axum (and on the why it has not a logo yet).

I’m really excited for these next 4 weeks because, although I love meeting people in person, conference season can be exhausting. Sometimes it’s nice to just switch on the camera, have fun, and build cool things together.

If you like this idea and want to learn Rust and web development from someone who’s been doing it for over 4 years, set your reminder. (Live on X and YT)

See you later!

Francesco

Everywhere I go (meetups, conferences, WhatsApp groups, team calls, podcasts), people hit me with the same fucking questions: “Is AI gonna replace us? Is it still worth being a developer?”

I’m tired of it. I’m done with the generic answers and the two-beer wisdom.

Between February and March 2026, I put the last 4 years of real experience into this book. No bullshit. Just what I honestly think. I went from scared to calm without losing who I am. And I recently started my own company.

If you’re tired of that knot in your stomach every time a new AI tool drops, this one’s for you. It is a 59-page PDF in English. ~1 hour read.

The Newsletter Deal

Because you are here on my Substack, I am not letting you pay the 14,50€ retail price.

For you, it is 9,86€. That is 66% off (for real)

This is a private link. I am not posting this discount on X or LinkedIn. It is a direct “thank you” for being part of this community from the start.

Claim my 66% Discount

This newsletter is written by Francesco, but it will be community-driven. If you'd like something mentioned in upcoming issues, feel free to tag me on X/Twitter or LinkedIn, or leave a comment on my YouTube Channel. This project is part of the RustCrab Open Source project.

Today, I want to bring to your attention 3 interesting articles you might have missed.

Anthropic raises $30 billion in Series G funding at $380 billion post-money valuation

Anthropic has raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation to scale its frontier research and enterprise AI infrastructure. Following a massive revenue surge to $14 billion, the company is leveraging the success of Claude Code and the new Opus 4.6 model to dominate the agentic coding and professional services markets across all major cloud platforms.

https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-30-billion-series-g-funding-380-billion-post-money-valuation

GLM-5: The World’s Strongest Open-Source LLM Solely Trained on Chinese Huawei Chips

Zhipu AI has launched GLM-5, a 744-billion-parameter model touted as the world's strongest open-source LLM, trained entirely on Huawei Ascend chips. By leveraging a domestic hardware stack and the MindSpore framework, the model represents a major step toward China's drive for AI self-sufficiency amid U.S. sanctions. Technically, GLM-5 features a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture and a new reinforcement learning system called "slime," allowing it to outperform models like Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.2 in coding and autonomous "agentic" tasks.

https://www.trendingtopics.eu/glm-5-the-worlds-strongest-open-source-llm-solely-trained-on-chinese-huawei-chips/

Building a C compiler with a team of parallel Claudes

WhatsApp Goes "Rust-First" to Combat Advanced Malware WhatsApp has rolled out a new, Rust-powered security layer to protect its 3 billion users from malware disguised as media files. By moving away from vulnerable legacy systems to a memory-safe language, WhatsApp has set a new industry benchmark, proving that Rust can handle the world's heaviest traffic while providing superior protection against sophisticated cyber-attacks.

https://engineering.fb.com/2026/01/27/security/rust-at-scale-security-whatsapp/

My week in Rust and AI

This section is about the things I am creating with Rust, and you might have missed.

• 🚨 Will AI replace developers in 2026? Is coding dead, or is it just evolving? We’ll see, but which skills do you need to stay relevant, and why the "AI takeover" might not be what you think? watch it now

• I made an open-source contribution to Rig! Rig it’s an open-source tool for building LLM applications in Rust. IF you are curious about RIG, check this video

• Rust and Lambda Functions: video

If you want to get in touch or sponsor this newsletter, send me a message: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

This newsletter is written by Francesco, but it will be community-driven. If you'd like something mentioned in upcoming issues, feel free to tag me on X/Twitter or LinkedIn, or leave a comment on my YouTube Channel. This project is part of the RustCrab Open Source project.

🦀 Recap: Rust 2026 Project Goals

The Rust Project is shifting its planning from a 6-month cycle to a yearly cycle. They have just released the first draft of the 2026 Project Goals RFC and are looking for community and team feedback before the final announcement in April.

Key Takeaways:

• Annual Planning: Goals are now long-term technical programs for the entire year of 2026.

• Flagship Themes: High-level “big picture” trends (like “Beyond the &”) that define Rust’s direction over multiple years.

• The “Ask” System: Teams categorize their involvement as Small (quick reviews), Medium (exploratory support), or Large (reaching consensus/RFCs).

• Funding Available: If a great project goal is blocked by a lack of funds, the Rust Project is actively looking for sponsors to help.

• Open Call: You can still propose goals or volunteer as a point of contact for flagship themes.

Below, I have collected 3 articles about Rust, especially those related to the world of AI.

Great Refactor Initiative Looks to AI to Harden Critical Code

Global IT infrastructures are still plagued by software flaws that AI could soon make easier to exploit. However, AI is also driving a solution: a new project is designed to automatically migrate insecure code into Rust. This transition would effectively wipe out the vast majority of documented software vulnerabilities.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-code-rust-great-refactor

Anthropic’s $20,000 Experiment

Anthropic's latest experiment involved 16 Claude Opus 4 agents working in parallel to create a 100,000-line C compiler in Rust. The project, which cost $20,000 in API fees, confirms that while AI can now handle massive, functional coding projects from the ground up, human architects are still vital to the process.

https://www.webpronews.com/anthropics-20000-experiment-how-16-parallel-ai-agents-built-a-100000-line-c-compiler-from-scratch-in-rust/

Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

WhatsApp Goes "Rust-First" to Combat Advanced Malware WhatsApp has rolled out a new, Rust-powered security layer to protect its 3 billion users from malware disguised as media files. By moving away from vulnerable legacy systems to a memory-safe language, WhatsApp has set a new industry benchmark, proving that Rust can handle the world's heaviest traffic while providing superior protection against sophisticated cyber-attacks.

https://engineering.fb.com/2026/01/27/security/rust-at-scale-security-whatsapp/

My week in Rust and AI

This section is about the things I am creating with Rust, and you might have missed.

• 🚨 Are you curious about Rust, but are you allergic to theory? This video is for you because I collected 9 rust examples, just code, to give you a look into this programming language. watch it now

• What is Echokit? A video about Rust and embedding systems is here: watch it now

• Tomorrow I will have Luciano Mammino on my YouTube Channel, showing how to build a lambda function in Rust Set your reminder

If you want to get in touch or sponsor this newsletter, send me a message: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

This newsletter is written by Francesco, but it will be community-driven. If you'd like something to be mentioned in the upcoming issues, feel free to tag me on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, or leave a comment on my YouTube Channel. This project is part of the RustCrab Open Source project.

In this episode, we will focus on cod and three relevant projects in the AI ecosystem that are mainly built with Rust:

• Goose

• Codex

• Qdrant

Goose

Goose is an open source AI agent that runs on your machine and goes way beyond simple code suggestions. It can actually install tools, execute commands, and test builds with any LLM you want.

The project is really taking off on GitHub with over 27,000 stars and 2,500 forks. It is a massive community effort with 363 contributors and over 100 releases already. A major factor in its reliability is its tech stack. The core is built primarily in Rust, which makes up nearly 60% of the code. That heavy Rust foundation means it is designed for performance and safety right from the start.

https://github.com/block/goose

Codex

Codex is a lightweight coding agent from OpenAI that runs locally on your computer, whether you use it in the terminal or plug it directly into IDEs like VS Code and Cursor.

The project is absolutely massive on GitHub, sitting at nearly 57,000 stars and 7,400 forks. It is supported by a strong group of 335 contributors who have already pushed out over 400 releases. But what really stands out is how it is built. This isn’t just a wrapper; the codebase is 97% Rust.

That is an incredibly high percentage, meaning it is engineered specifically for the kind of speed and safety you need in a local agent.

https://github.com/openai/codex

Qdrant

Qdrant is a high-performance vector database and search engine designed specifically to handle the massive scale of next-gen AI applications.

It has built a solid following on GitHub, currently holding about 28,300 stars and 2,000 forks.

The project is maintained by a dedicated group of 150 contributors who have already shipped over 100 releases. What makes it stand out for production workloads is the engineering: the codebase is 88% Rust. That heavy Rust foundation is exactly why it stays fast and reliable, even when you are putting it under high load.

https://github.com/qdrant/qdrant

The X Algorithm

Special mention is the X Algorithm. Even if it’s not strictly AI-related, it’s interesting to note that such a project is now going to be rewritten in Rust + Python, a great combo. This does mean that in the future we will see more Rust jobs, and more projects and algorithms built with Rust.

My week in Rust and AI

This section is about the things I am creating with Rust, and you might have missed.

• 🚨 I just published a video about Rust and Web Dev in 2026: watch it now

• The Rust Crush Bootcamp Part 2 is out: watch it now

• Tomorrow I will have Jack Huey on my channel. Jack is a member of the Rust Foundation Board and a primary architect of the language. As the lead of the Types Team and a Compiler Team Maintainer! Set your reminder

If you want to get in touch or sponsor this newsletter, send me a message: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

This newsletter is written by Francesco, but it will be community-driven. If you'd like something to be mentioned in the upcoming issues, feel free to tag me on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, or leave a comment on my YouTube Channel. This project is part of the RustCrab Open Source project.

Ralph Wiggum is the viral agentic coding loop.

Wait, is this a joke? Not it is not. Ralph Wiggum is an open-source, community-led tool that turns AI coding agents into reliable builders. It solves the common problem where agents “wander” or over-engineer by enforcing clear specifications, acceptance criteria, and systematic verification.

The Methodology: The Ralph Loop Based on Geoffrey Huntley’s principles, the system operates on a “fresh context” model:

1. Plan: The agent compares specs against the code to create a prioritized IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md.

2. Build: It picks one task, implements it, tests it, commits it, and then exits to clear the context window.

3. Repeat: The process restarts with a clean slate, reading the plan from the disk until the project is marked <promise>DONE</promise>.

This approach uses tests as “backpressure” (rejecting invalid work) and persists state on disk rather than in memory, allowing the AI to self-correct and self-improve autonomously. read this directly on the main page

🔴I will try it tomorrow, live here

GPT-5.2 Builds a Browser in 1 Week...with Rust!

I just saw this experiment from Michael Truell where they let GPT-5.2 run loose in Cursor for a solid week, and the result is honestly kind of wild. It churned out over 3 million lines of code to build a browser named FastRender.

It is not just a wrapper around an existing webview either. This thing has a scratch-built rendering engine that handles HTML parsing, CSS cascade, layout, and even has its own custom JS VM. It actually renders Google pretty well, which is insane for a week of AI work.

But the thing that really made me curious and nod was the tech stack. We are talking about a domain that has been dominated by C++ for decades. If you look at Chromium or WebKit, that is just the standard. Yet when the AI had complete freedom to choose the best tool for the job, it didn’t even hesitate. It picked Rust.

It feels like even the AI realizes that if you want to build a safe, high-performance system in 2026, dealing with C++ memory management just isn’t worth the hassle. If GPT-5.2 is betting on Rust for safety-critical systems, maybe we should take the hint.

Will 2026 really be the year of rust for AI? It seems like that. Tweet link.

Safety-Critical Rust: It’s real, but it’s lonely at the top

The Vision Doc group just dropped a deep dive into using Rust for safety-critical systems like cars, medical devices, and aerospace. The big takeaway is that this is no longer just a theory. It is running in production right now. Engineers are finding that the Rust compiler basically automates 90% of the safety checks they used to need expensive external tools for. That is a massive win.

But here is the catch. As soon as you move to “high-criticality” systems where failure means people get hurt, the ecosystem vanishes. You basically can’t use crates.io. Teams are forced to write everything from scratch because verifying third-party code or an async runtime at that level is still a nightmare. The path to safety-critical Rust is open, but right now, you have to walk a lot of it alone. Read more

My week in Rust and AI

This section is about the things I am creating with Rust, and you might have missed. It has been a very busy week, so you may not want to miss a thing, but feel free to skip it if you are not interested.

• Rust vs Python for AI: Is Rig better than Langchain? - Running Python inside Rust?

• Today, 5 PM CET, I will make the 2nd part of the Rust CRUSH Bootcamp. Sign up

• Tomorrow, 3pm CET, I will go live to try the Ralph Wiggle loop. Set your reminder

One last thing….

As promised, here is the big exclusive news in advance:

Join me today at 5 PM CET for something different.

We are going to build a complete game engine in Rust, but there is a catch: we are doing it in “1990 Mode.”

No Copilot. No ChatGPT. No Agents. I am even turning off the autocomplete.

Why? Because it is easy to forget how things actually work when you have an AI writing the boilerplate for you. To really master a system, you sometimes need to go into “slow mode” for a few hours so you can move faster for the rest of your career.

We are going to build Crablo, an isometric dungeon crawler, from absolute zero. We will write the math for the grid, the pathfinding algorithms, and the combat logic entirely by hand.

It will be a very practical, hands-on lesson on what happens under the hood of a game engine.

It’s just us, the compiler, and the raw code.

You will like it, pinky swear.

If you want to get in touch or sponsor this newsletter, send me a message: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

This newsletter is written by Francesco, but it will be community-driven. If you'd like something to be mentioned in the upcoming issues, feel free to tag me on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, or leave a comment on my YouTube Channel. This project is part of the RustCrab Open Source project

Articles:

This week, I read three interesting articles on the topic and edited the last video about Rig. Stay tuned, as the video will be released on YouTube next week!

• Rust moves from an experiment to a core Linux kernel language

Where does Rust in Linux go now? In a word, “Everywhere.”

With Rust securing its place as a first-class language in the Linux kernel back in December, the 'experiment' phase is effectively over. While not everyone is on board, the focus is now purely on logistics: integrating Rust into drivers and subsystems without fracturing the ecosystem. The narrative has evolved from questioning Rust’s survival to defining the roadmap for its integration.

Read the full article

• Rust Project goals update - December 2025

We are working toward a total of 41 project goals, focusing heavily on 13 Flagship Goals. Below, we provide updates on our progress (or the lack thereof) for a selection of these. If you are looking for granular details on a specific target, please refer to the tracking issues in the rust-project-goals repository. The Rust project is currently working towards a slate of 41 project goals, with 13 of them designated as Flagship Goals. You can read the full article here

• AI Engineers are Openly Choosing Rust Over Everything Else

Rust is becoming the default choice, a sentiment echoed by OpenAI’s Greg Brockman and validated by the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. Rust secured a 72% admiration rating and celebrated its ninth year as the 'most loved' language. The survey revealed a strong desire for adoption: while actual usage was 29.2% last year, 72.4% of developers plan to work with Rust in the year ahead.

This is an interesting article I read about how the features of the Rust programming language can help in running models faster, safer, and closer to the hardware of AI.

GitHub repositories

I would like to include three very interesting GitHub repositories. All three of them are tools that can help developers build AI applications using Rust. I might dive deeper into them on one of my upcoming livestreams

• memvid https://github.com/memvid/memvid

Memory layer for AI Agents. Replace complex RAG pipelines with a serverless, single-file memory layer.

• BloopAI https://github.com/BloopAI/vibe-kanban

Get 10X more out of Claude Code, Codex, or any coding agent

• cc-switch: https://github.com/farion1231/cc-switch

A cross-platform desktop All-in-One assistant tool for Claude Code, Codex & Gemini CLI.

Self promotion

This section is about the things I am creating with Rust, and you might have missed. It has been a very busy week, so you may not want to miss a thing, but feel free to skip it if you are not interested.

The past week has been extremely intense, and I finally received a physical copy of my book. I announced it with an unscripted video! So now I will have more time to dedicate to creating video content about Rust, and of course, this newsletter. There are also 2 giveaways ongoing, and TODAY (January 9th) is the last day to participate: X giveaway / Linkedin giveaway

(YES these videos are just the ones I published this week alone!):

🟢 I just released a new video: An AI full-stack solution written in Rust video

🔴 Upcoming live event (Saturday, 3pm CET): Build AI Voice Apps with Rust and Docker - with Echokit

🤔 Should you learn Rust in 2026? Watch 5 minutes of this video…

🌐 Axum (The Rust web framework) series kickstarted! video

One last thing….

🦀 Big news: Next week is Part 2 of the “Rust Bootcamp”! You can sign up here to make sure you don’t miss the invite. 350+ people have already joined.

I’m prepping a unique lesson where I’ll live-code a clone of an old Blizzard game in just a couple of hours (if you're reading this, this is something I haven’t announced on social media yet!). I can’t spoil the surprise just yet, but trust me, it’s going to be fun.

🤫 Newsletter Exclusive: If you’re reading this, you’re getting the scoop first! Next week, I’ll announce the project in this newsletter a few hours before we go live, so you’ll be the first to know what it is.

Stay tuned! 😈

Francesco

If you want to get in touch or sponsor this newsletter, send me a message: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube

🎉Happy New Year, everyone.

Welcome to Rust for AI.

If you saw my post on X a few days ago, you know exactly why we are here. I promised that 2026 would be different. We are doing a 52-week journey together. This series will run every Friday throughout 2026 to bridge the gap between AI experimentation and production engineering.

We are done with the hype. It is time to build.

The Era of AI Engineering

If the last 12 months were defined by experimentation, often characterized by what MIT Technology Review termed “Vibe Coding”, then 2026 marks a return to fundamentals. We have spent years exploring the capabilities of Generative AI. Now the industry is shifting its focus to other important concepts, like reliability, performance, and safety.

This week, Microsoft provided the clearest signal yet of this transition. In a move that validates the direction of this newsletter, Distinguished Engineer Galen Hunt announced a strategic goal to migrate legacy C/C++ codebases to Rust by 2030, leveraging AI agents to assist in the translation.

This is a very important moment. It suggests that the future of AI is not just about generating code. It is about generating correct code. Microsoft is basically using AI to translate, with the Rust Compiler serving as the ultimate quality gate.

To me, the message is clear. Python remains excellent for prototyping, but Rust might become the standard for production.

The Context

To understand the opportunity in front of us, you need to look at these four stories as one single narrative arc.

1. The Mandate Microsoft Targets 2030 to Replace C/C++ with Rust The “NExT Operating Systems” group is building the tooling. They are betting that the only way to secure the world’s most attacked software is to combine the speed of AI Agents with the memory safety guarantees of Rust. And this is also my vision for 2026

2. The Obstacle Rust 2025: AI, Go & $400k Salaries: this is of course not going to be easy. In this interview, Jon Gjengset (author of Rust for Rustaceans) warns that AI still struggles with Rust. Why? Because LLMs lack the “mental model” of lifetimes and ownership. They can write Python boilerplate, but they still fight the Borrow Checker just like a junior dev.

3. The Solution Coding Rust with Claude Code and Codex This is the “How-To” that solves Jon’s concern. The author demonstrates a brilliant workflow where we use The Compiler as the Senior Engineer. When an AI generates buggy Python code, it fails silently in production. When an AI writes buggy Rust, the compiler gives it a deterministic error code like E0373. We can feed that error back to the AI and force it to self-correct before we ever ship.

4. The Reality Check AI Wrapped 2025 Terms like “Chatbot Psychosis” and “Slop” defined 2025. In 2026, we stop just “vibing”. We start compiling.

Type-Safe Agents: The End of Hallucination Loops

Microsoft is building AI agents to write Rust. But how do we build agents in Rust that do not crash?

In the Python ecosystem, an agent loop is often a while True loop praying for valid JSON. In Rust, we can do better. We can use State Machines to make invalid states unrepresentable.

By using the Rig library, we can define our Agent’s memory not as a loose list of strings, but as a strict Struct. If the LLM tries to output data that does not match our type definition, the program does not just “act weird” because it refuses to proceed.

Upcoming Live Event

Speaking of Rig, I have something special for you.

If we want to build production-ready LLM applications in Rust, Rig is currently the library to watch. It is modular, scalable, and open source.

I will be hosting a live session with Joshua Mo, the maintainer of Rig, on January 3rd, 3pm CET. We will dive into the architecture of the library and explore how it handles the complexities of LLM orchestration in Rust.

🔔 Set a reminder for the Live Stream here

A Personal Note

I have been working hard behind the scenes to prepare for this year. If you would like to learn more about my background or explore my current projects, I have recently updated my portfolio.

You can check it out here: francescociulla.com

Let’s crush this 2026 🦀

See you next Friday, Francesco

P.S. If you would like to support this series and get your brand in front of Rust & AI engineers, you can sponsor this newsletter here.

Following the incredible success of the first Rust Crush Bootcamp, I am thrilled to announce that sign-ups are now officially open for Part 2!

In Part 1, we crushed the basics.

In Part 2, we will focus on building applications.

What to expect: We will focus entirely on building real-world projects that you can actually use and add to your portfolio.

It’s time to get our hands dirty and build something we can add to our portfolio

The Details:

• 🗓️ When: January 16, 2026

• ⏰ Time: 5:00 PM CET

• 💸 Cost: 100% Free
  
  

125+ people already signed up 🔥

Hey everyone,

I have some personal news to share.

My time at daily.dev has come to an end.

This chapter of my career is coming to a close, and it has forced me to make a significant decision about my future. For the last year, I’ve felt a tug-of-war between creating content and writing code.

I realized I missed the engineering side more than I thought. Specifically, I missed Rust.

So, I’ve decided not to look for another Developer Relations role. I am quitting the industry to pivot back to full-time engineering and education.

However, I might return in the future…

I recorded a 10-minute video explaining the whole story, the wins we had along the way, and precisely what’s next.

What does this mean for this newsletter? You can expect a lot more technical deep dives. I am dedicating myself 100% to content creation and engineering. If you are here for Rust and coding, things are about to get very exciting.

Thanks for being part of the journey.

See you in the code,

Francesco

It's been an incredibly exciting time, and I'm thrilled to share some updates with you, from recent travels to a brand new video and what's new!

My experience at RustConf 2025

I've just returned from RustConf in Seattle, and it was quite a trip! I was honored to participate in two official roles: as a speaker and one of the conference's content creators. This was a new experience for me, and I loved it. I spent my time recording interviews with brilliant minds in the Rust community, even with the creators of the language!

I'm currently editing all the footage and will share it with you very soon.

New Video: "Why Should I Learn Rust?"

I'm excited to have finally published a video that answers the question I get asked more than any other. It’s not about lifetimes or the borrow checker, but something more fundamental: "Why Rust?"

I've distilled hundreds of conversations into a 5-minute, watchable video designed to convince you (and maybe your JavaScript-loving friends) to dive into the fantastic world of Rust.

Click here to watch the video

After you watch, comment, and let me know if this was the final push you needed! 🦀

Upcoming Events & Future Plans

• Meet Me in Dallas! I will attend the Commit Your Code conference on September 25-26, 2025. I'd love to connect for a quick chat if you plan to be there. Just come and say hi!

• Hacktoberfest is Coming: I'm deep in planning mode for Hacktoberfest. The theme will be about contributing to open source and making our GitHub profiles look fresh. More on that soon!

• The Book is Almost Here: My main focus for 2025 is finalizing my Rust book. Keep an eye out for the official launch announcement. Yes, as a thank you for your support, newsletter subscribers will get a special discount. ;)

Thanks for reading!

Ciao,

Francesco

I am getting back to being more active on this newsletter, and I am preparing a lot of new content for the upcoming months!

But first, a quick break! I will be on vacation from tomorrow until August 29 to take some (hopefully) well-deserved rest after a very intense year packed with content and travel (and we are not done yet!).

I'll be back on August 29, and just two days later, I will head to RustConf in Seattle! I have been invited there both as a speaker and as a content creator, so I will actually be part of the staff!

Once I am back, I will finish reviewing the chapters of my upcoming Rust book, which will be released in 2025, although I don’t have a precise date yet.

On September 9, I have a new Italian project launching. Stay tuned, as I will share more about it soon!

On September 23rd, I will go to the Commit Your Code conference in Dallas, Texas.

In October, I have an Italian conference in Milan and the Docker Captain Summit (it should be in Turkey, but I'm not sure if this is public news yet!). :)

Today, at 5 p.m. CEST, I will go live with the CEO of Augment Code to discuss developers and AI. This is one of the hottest topics, and I am sure you will enjoy it. How can developers write better code with AI? At this event, Guy Guir-Ari, co-founder of Augment, will discuss this hot topic.

Link below. Live at 5pm CEST

...And for my final piece of news, a gift for you! 🎁

I have released a program to create a social media and content creation strategy. It's a personalized package of ten 1-hour, one-on-one calls. The price includes preparation time before each call, recaps after each call, and unlimited support via DMs for the entire duration of the course (you can just DM me on Twitter, and I will reply as soon as possible to support you).

If you are reading this from the newsletter, and only from the newsletter, you can get it for 60% off. (This isn't marketing BS, this link is genuinely only available here. If you don't trust me, check my pinned tweet, where the discount is 50%.)

🎁Check the course

I launched this program last week with the goal of accepting a maximum of 7 students, and 5 people have signed up already (2 were actually from the last newsletter!).

So if you are serious about content creation and want human support in this AI era, this might be the right thing for you. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter.

With that said, I am preparing for the live event.

See you soon

Francesco

Do you want to accomplish in 10 hours what would take years of mistakes?

We live in a time when everything moves fast, and we never have enough time.

We also live in a time when having a strong social media presence and creating content can skyrocket our careers.

Wouldn’t it be great to avoid wasting time making countless mistakes and having to start over again and again?

During COVID, I made plenty of mistakes but also learned an incredible amount. Showing up on social media and creating content completely changed my life and the lives of those around me for the better.

Now, I’m free to travel and I earn enough to do exactly what I want, when I want.

And this might sound crazy, but I'm going in the opposite direction in this era of AI and automation.

For a limited time, I’ve decided to offer all my knowledge and support in the form of personalized 1-on-1 calls to help you create a long-term strategy that will boost your social media presence.

Instead of one-off calls (which I already do), I’m offering a package of 10 calls to consolidate your strategy and give real meaning to the work we’ll do together.

The standard price for 10 one-hour calls (plus the same time spent on preparation on my side) is €899.

But since today is my birthday 🎂, I’m launching this offer at half the price on all my Social Media.

But hey, I said that if you subscribe to my newsletter, you would get a better deal, and I am keeping my word.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS FROM THE NEWSLETTER, there’s a 10% more discount for the first three people (for a total of 60%):

The Creator's Strategy Pack (10 Calls)

⚠️ Important: spots are very limited. I’ll only take on as many people as I can personally follow closely, a maximum of 7 to start.

If you’ve been following me for a while and want to take advantage of this opportunity, now’s the time.

You can check the details at the link below (it's on Gumroad)

https://francescociulla.gumroad.com/l/creatorstrategy/60NEWSLETTER

📩 For any questions or to reserve your spot, send me a private message today.

Good luck!

Francesco

Today, I am sharing some important moments of my journey, and I am planning what’s next!

Come say hi!

It has been a while since the last newsletter, and this week will be so packed with events that I want to share what’s happening day by day.

Starting today, we will have one live event per day until Friday, so check if you are interested in any of them!

August 5:

Live testing out GitHub Spark, the new AI tool to build app released by GitHub

August 6:

Live with Atharva to test the new “Appwrite Sites”, meant to replace Vercel

During this Live event, we’ll try out Appwrite Sites to test how good it really is. Join and try it out

August 7:

YouTube anniversary!

I can’t believe that 5 years have already passed since my first YouTube video!

Let’s celebrate it with awkward reactions and share my journey and what’s next for the channel!

August 8:

RUST is not just for system programming!

Join us for a live event with Nathaniel Simard, Founder of Tracel AI, where we'll dive into the world of Rust and its applications beyond system programming.

I am also working on some new products on Gumroad and the Rust book, planning more twitter Spaces and as usual, if you sign up for this newsletter, you will have the best deals and offers!

Stay tuned!

Let’s CRUSH IT!

Francesco

Find me at francescociulla.com

Hey there,

Have you heard about the term “Vibe coding“ ? I think so

I will share my honest thoughts about vibe coding.

It's not a fully prepared live presentation, but you will get my honest thoughts and some random ranting.

https://www.twitch.tv/francesco_ciulla

It has been a while since I last wrote a newsletter, and I was waiting for something special to get back to you.

I've created a 3.5-hour bootcamp for beginners to LEARN RUST IN A SINGLE VIDEO!

Learn Rust

Ok, ok,….that’s just marketing, of course, because you need a lot of experience and practice to learn Rust. But this is precisely what the video is about! We are going through many, many practical examples, and you’ll learn Rust by coding.

I dedicated an insane amount of hours to this free video ( I might do a livestream on Twitch later to explain the whole process) , and I hope you’ll all enjoy it.

Please let me know what you think and share it with your friends. (I know REAL developers don't have friends…but you get the point!)

Video Link: https://youtu.be/gAX3Zj-JGE0

Find me here: http://www.francescociulla.com

Try DataStax Astra DB: https://dtsx.io/francesco

Try Langflow: https://dtsx.io/francesco-lf

Langflow on GitHub (leave a star): https://dtsx.io/4gXv7I2

I also published the 42th episode of the rust full tutorial series.

In this lesson, we introduce the options for a release-grade build with cargo, in Rust

Useful links:

• Rust book: https://mybook.to/YJI6DI

• Rust Workbook: https://francescociulla.gumroad.com/l/rustworkbook

• Rust Cheatsheet: https://francescociulla.gumroad.com/l/rustcheatsheet

ALL THE LINKS HERE: https://francescociulla.com