Best of fasterthanli.me — 2025

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   Article

   fasterthanli.me·24w

   My gift to the rustdoc team

   Arborium is a new open-source project that brings tree-sitter-based syntax highlighting to Rust documentation. It bundles 96 language grammars into Rust crates that compile to both native and WebAssembly targets. The project offers three integration approaches: a JavaScript/WASM script for immediate use on docs.rs, a rustdoc PR to add native highlighting support, and a post-processor that adds highlighting to existing HTML documentation with minimal size overhead. The solution addresses long-standing limitations in docs.rs by providing accurate, comprehensive syntax highlighting without requiring full documentation rebuilds.

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   fasterthanli.me·27w

   Does Dioxus spark joy?

   An in-depth review of Dioxus, a Rust-based full-stack web framework that promises unified codebases across mobile, web, and desktop. The author explores Dioxus's server-side rendering, hydration process, and extensive hook system while comparing it to JavaScript frameworks like React and Svelte. Despite initial frustrations with debugging, hot-patching, and developer experience, the author acknowledges significant improvements in the main branch and recognizes the team's ambitious work on WASM tooling, though concludes the framework isn't quite ready to match JavaScript-based solutions in ergonomics.

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   fasterthanli.me·30w

   Engineering a Rust optimization quiz

   A detailed account of building an interactive Rust optimization quiz for EuroRust 2025, covering the entire process from question design using Compiler Explorer to implementation with Dioxus framework. The author explores compiler optimizations like division-to-shift transformations, floating-point arithmetic edge cases, and memcpy recognition, while solving technical challenges including real-time voting, WebSocket reconnection handling, and scaling to hundreds of concurrent players. The project involved multiple playtesting sessions with Rust community members, last-minute features like GitHub OAuth and swipe gestures, and deployment on Kubernetes.

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