I've been writing Rust code in production for 4+ years, and I can write Rust pretty well, and I've learned a lot from using chatgpt and co-pilot/cursor.
In particular, it helped me write my first generic functions and macros, two things that were pretty intimidating to try and get into.
How does anyone self learning know they're learning the "right things and the best way to do things"? By putting the stuff they've learned into practice and putting it up against the real world. How many Rust tutorials are out there that teach things incorrectly, non-idomatically or just inefficiently? How does anyone not already an expert know except by trying it out?
Well, I coded at Google (in addition to other places) for over 10 years without LLMs in several languages and I feel like I’m about at par with Rust as I was with those languages. I’m open to being humbled, which I have felt by LLMs and ofc other folks — “good” is subjective.
How would you know?
If you didn't know Rust already, how would you know the LLM was teaching you the right things and the best way to do things?
Just because it compiles doesn't mean it works. The world is full of bad, buggy, insecure, poor code that compiles.