Idiomatic Rust follows conventions that other Rust programmers can recognize and reason about. Familiar choices make code easier to read and help maintainers judge whether a design fits its purpose. An idiom may be small; it need not be a large design pattern. section 1.0 section 1.2
Treat conventions as tools, not rules. Choose a familiar approach when it clarifies the code, but adapt it when the problem calls for something else. A pattern used in the wrong situation can make a design worse rather than better. section 1.1 section 1.2
When choosing a style for Rust library code:
- Start with the Rust standard library: inspect its documentation, linked source, and historical discussions to see both a convention and the reasoning behind it. section 6.6
- Compare popular crates for additional approaches, but evaluate their designs rather than assuming popularity proves quality. section 6.6
