Book Image

Asynchronous Programming in Rust

By : Carl Fredrik Samson
5 (2)
Book Image

Asynchronous Programming in Rust

5 (2)
By: Carl Fredrik Samson

Overview of this book

Step into the world of asynchronous programming with confidence by conquering the challenges of unclear concepts with this hands-on guide. Using functional examples, this book simplifies the trickiest concepts, exploring goroutines, fibers, futures, and callbacks to help you navigate the vast Rust async ecosystem with ease. You’ll start by building a solid foundation in asynchronous programming and explore diverse strategies for modeling program flow. The book then guides you through concepts like epoll, coroutines, green threads, and callbacks using practical examples. The final section focuses on Rust, examining futures, generators, and the reactor-executor pattern. You’ll apply your knowledge to create your own runtime, solidifying expertise in this dynamic domain. Throughout the book, you’ll not only gain proficiency in Rust's async features but also see how Rust models asynchronous program flow. By the end of the book, you'll possess the knowledge and practical skills needed to actively contribute to the Rust async ecosystem.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1:Asynchronous Programming Fundamentals
5
Part 2:Event Queues and Green Threads
8
Part 3:Futures and async/await in Rust

Creating a proper runtime

So, if we visualize the degree of dependency between the different parts of our runtime, our current design could be described this way:

Figure 8.5 – Tight coupling between reactor and executor

Figure 8.5 – Tight coupling between reactor and executor

If we want a loose coupling between the reactor and executor, we need an interface provided to signal the executor that it should wake up when an event that allows a future to progress has occurred. It’s no coincidence that this type is called Waker (https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/task/struct.Waker.html) in Rust’s standard library. If we change our visualization to reflect this, it will look something like this:

Figure 8.6 – A loosely coupled reactor and executor

Figure 8.6 – A loosely coupled reactor and executor

It’s no coincidence that we land on the same design as what we have in Rust today. It’s a minimal design from Rust’s point of view, but it allows for a wide variety of runtime designs without laying...