As a developer, you need a development environment or editor to write and debug your code. A popular editor is VSCode, which can be enhanced with extensions. The most downloaded Rust extension is rust-analyzer. If you want a more thorough static code analysis, consider using `clippy` instead of the default `check` tool. While check only verifies that your code compiles, clippy analyzes your code and provides useful information and tips.

For debugging, you can use the CodeLLdb extension. With this debugger, you can step through your code, put in watches, inspect variables, and see your call stack, among other features.

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is an artificial intelligence chatbot that is capable of performing many tasks, including writing code or refactoring existing code. You can find a VSCode plugin that uses ChatGPT here (note: the plugin is still a bit hacky because there is no official API for ChatGPT yet). If you would like to see a demo video on YouTube, click here.

If you want to chat with GPT follow this link. You will need to sign-up but it is definitively worth it.

Another AI tool that is used in production and helps you write code is Copilot. They call it the AI pair programmer.

AI will be the future of in-editor resources, such as StackOverflow, as well as a pair programmer and reviewer all in one…​

Are you interested in trying something new? Consider giving Helix a try – it is an editor written in Rust. To get started, watch this YouTube video. If you’d like to see the manual, click here.

Helix is designed to be used without a mouse, keeping your hands on the keyboard. If you’re already familiar with editors like Vim, the transition to Helix should be easy.

Consider giving Helix a try in your next hobby project and let me know your experience with it.

Helix the editor written in Rust