Rollup merge of #24239 - steveklabnik:editing_pass, r=steveklabnik

Now that the new TOC has landed, I've started doing an editing pass to get the old content into the right shape. I felt this introduction was significant enough to send as its own PR, though, as it's the introduction.

It's possible that we may just want to replace 'the intro' with this directly, but this PR doesn't do that.

Author: Manishearth

src/doc/trpl/README.md

@@ -1,39 +1,192 @@
 % The Rust Programming Language
 
-Welcome! This book will teach you about [the Rust Programming
-Language](http://www.rust-lang.org/). Rust is a modern systems programming
-language focusing on safety and speed. It accomplishes these goals by being
-memory safe without using garbage collection.
+Welcome! This book will teach you about the [Rust Programming Language][rust].
+Rust is a systems programming language focused on three goals: safety, speed,
+and concurrency. It maintains these goals without having a garbage collector,
+making it a useful language for a number of use cases other languages aren’t
+good at: embedding in other languages, programs with specific space and time
+requirements, and writing low-level code, like device drivers and operating
+systems. It improves on current languages targeting this space by having a
+number of compile-time safety checks that produce no runtime overhead, while
+eliminating all data races. Rust also aims to achieve ‘zero-cost abstrations’
+even though some of these abstractions feel like those of a high-level
+language. Even then, Rust still allows precise control like a low-level
+language would.
 
-"The Rust Programming Language" is split into three sections, which you can
-navigate through the menu on the left.
+[rust]: http://rust-lang.org
 
-<h2 class="section-header"><a href="basic.html">Basics</a></h2>
+“The Rust Programming Language” is split into seven sections. This introduction
+is the first. After this:
 
-This section is a linear introduction to the basic syntax and semantics of
-Rust. It has individual sections on each part of Rust's syntax.
+* [Getting started][gs] - Set up your computer for Rust development.
+* [Learn Rust][lr] - Learn Rust programming through small projects.
+* [Effective Rust][er] - Higher-level concepts for writing excellent Rust code.
+* [Syntax and Semantics][ss] - Each bit of Rust, broken down into small chunks.
+* [Nightly Rust][nr] - Cutting-edge features that aren’t in stable builds yet.
+* [Glossary][gl] - A reference of terms used in the book.
 
-After reading "Basics," you will have a good foundation to learn more about
-Rust, and can write very simple programs.
+[gs]: getting-started.html
+[lr]: learn-rust.html
+[er]: effective-rust.html
+[ss]: syntax-and-semantics.html
+[nr]: nightly-rust.html
+[gl]: glossary.html
 
-<h2 class="section-header"><a href="intermediate.html">Intermediate</a></h2>
+After reading this introduction, you’ll want to dive into either ‘Learn Rust’
+or ‘Syntax and Semantics’, depending on your preference: ‘Learn Rust’ if you
+want to dive in with a project, or ‘Syntax and Semantics’ if you prefer to
+start small, and learn a single concept thoroughly before moving onto the next.
+Copious cross-linking connects these parts together.
 
-This section contains individual chapters, which are self-contained. They focus
-on specific topics, and can be read in any order.
+## A brief introduction to Rust
 
-After reading "Intermediate," you will have a solid understanding of Rust,
-and will be able to understand most Rust code and write more complex programs.
+Is Rust a language you might be interested in? Let’s examine a few small code
+samples to show off a few of its strengths.
 
-<h2 class="section-header"><a href="advanced.html">Advanced</a></h2>
+The main concept that makes Rust unique is called ‘ownership’. Consider this
+small example:
 
-In a similar fashion to "Intermediate," this section is full of individual,
-deep-dive chapters, which stand alone and can be read in any order. These
-chapters focus on Rust's most complex features.
+```rust
+fn main() {
+    let mut x = vec!["Hello", "world"];
+}
+```
 
-<h2 class="section-header"><a href="unstable.html">Unstable</a></h2>
+This program makes a [variable binding][var] named `x`. The value of this
+binding is a `Vec<T>`, a ‘vector’, that we create through a [macro][macro]
+defined in the standard library. This macro is called `vec`, and we invoke
+macros with a `!`. This follows a general principle of Rust: make things
+explicit. Macros can do significantly more complicated things than function
+calls, and so they’re visually distinct. The `!` also helps with parsing,
+making tooling easier to write, which is also important.
 
-In a similar fashion to "Intermediate," this section is full of individual,
-deep-dive chapters, which stand alone and can be read in any order.
+We used `mut` to make `x` mutable: bindings are immutable by default in Rust.
+We’ll be mutating this vector later in the example.
 
-This chapter contains things that are only available on the nightly channel of
-Rust.
+It’s also worth noting that we didn’t need a type annotation here: while Rust
+is statically typed, we didn’t need to explicitly annotate the type. Rust has
+type inference to balance out the power of static typing with the verbosity of
+annotating types.
+
+Rust prefers stack allocation to heap allocation: `x` is placed directly on the
+stack. However, the `Vec<T>` type allocates space for the elements of the
+vector on the heap. If you’re not familiar with this distinction, you can
+ignore it for now, or check out [‘The Stack and the Heap’][heap]. As a systems
+programming language, Rust gives you the ability to control how your memory is
+allocated, but when we’re getting started, it’s less of a big deal.
+
+[var]: variable-bindings.html
+[macro]: macros.html
+[heap]: the-stack-and-the-heap.html
+
+Earlier, we mentioned that ‘ownership’ is the key new concept in Rust. In Rust
+parlance, `x` is said to ‘own’ the vector. This means that when `x` goes out of
+scope, the vector’s memory will be de-allocated. This is done deterministically
+by the Rust compiler, rather than through a mechanism such as a garbage
+collector. In other words, in Rust, you don’t call functions like `malloc` and
+`free` yourself: the compiler statically determines when you need to allocate
+or deallocate memory, and inserts those calls itself. To err is to be human,
+but compilers never forget.
+
+Let’s add another line to our example:
+
+```rust
+fn main() {
+    let mut x = vec!["Hello", "world"];
+
+    let y = &x[0];
+}
+```
+
+We’ve introduced another binding, `y`. In this case, `y` is a ‘reference’ to
+the first element of the vector. Rust’s references are similar to pointers in
+other languages, but with additional compile-time safety checks. References
+interact with the ownership system by [‘borrowing’][borrowing] what they point
+to, rather than owning it. The difference is, when the reference goes out of
+scope, it will not deallocate the underlying memory. If it did, we’d
+de-allocate twice, which is bad!
+
+[borrowing]: references-and-borrowing.html
+
+Let’s add a third line. It looks innocent enough, but causes a compiler error:
+
+```rust,ignore
+fn main() {
+    let mut x = vec!["Hello", "world"];
+
+    let y = &x[0];
+
+    x.push(4);
+}
+```
+
+`push` is a method on vectors that appends another element to the end of the
+vector. When we try to compile this program, we get an error:
+
+```text
+error: cannot borrow `x` as mutable because it is also borrowed as immutable
+    x.push(4);
+    ^
+note: previous borrow of `x` occurs here; the immutable borrow prevents
+subsequent moves or mutable borrows of `x` until the borrow ends
+    let y = &x[0];
+             ^
+note: previous borrow ends here
+fn main() {
+
+}
+^
+```
+
+Whew! The Rust compiler gives quite detailed errors at times, and this is one
+of those times. As the error explains, while we made our binding mutable, we
+still cannot call `push`. This is because we already have a reference to an
+element of the vector, `y`. Mutating something while another reference exists
+is dangerous, because we may invalidate the reference. In this specific case,
+when we create the vector, we may have only allocated space for three elements.
+Adding a fourth would mean allocating a new chunk of memory for all those elements,
+copying the old values over, and updating the internal pointer to that memory.
+That all works just fine. The problem is that `y` wouldn’t get updated, and so
+we’d have a ‘dangling pointer’. That’s bad. Any use of `y` would be an error in
+this case, and so the compiler has caught this for us.
+
+So how do we solve this problem? There are two approaches we can take. The first
+is making a copy rather than using a reference:
+
+```rust
+fn main() {
+    let mut x = vec!["Hello", "world"];
+
+    let y = x[0].clone();
+
+    x.push(4);
+}
+```
+
+Rust has [move semantics][move] by default, so if we want to make a copy of some
+data, we call the `clone()` method. In this example, `y` is no longer a reference
+to the vector stored in `x`, but a copy of its first element, `"hello"`. Now
+that we don’t have a reference, our `push()` works just fine.
+
+[move]: move-semantics.html
+
+If we truly want a reference, we need the other option: ensure that our reference
+goes out of scope before we try to do the mutation. That looks like this:
+
+```rust
+fn main() {
+    let mut x = vec!["Hello", "world"];
+
+    {
+        let y = &x[0];
+    }
+
+    x.push(4);
+}
+```
+
+We created an inner scope with an additional set of curly braces. `y` will go out of
+scope before we call `push()`, and so we’re all good.
+
+This concept of ownership isn’t just good for preventing danging pointers, but an
+entire set of related problems, like iterator invalidation, concurrency, and more.