intorust.vscode
This is a super duper experimental VSCode extension that aims to help folks learn Rust more easily.
What it does
Help wanted. Note that most of the functionality here is either partially broken or entirely unimplemented. I've embedded links to issues through the README where you can help to fill that functionality in, if you so choose. =)
When you open a Rust project with compilation errors, you get a "Explain these errors" codelen hovering above each error (FIXME#6):
Clicking on that takes you to a chat window where Ferris themself is there to help (FIXME#11). Ferris examines the error message and relevant snippets from the surrounding code (FIXME#7) to offer you a detailed explanation of what is going on and, hopefully suggestions for how to fix it. You can ask follow-up questions (FIXME#2) to dive deeper. If you like the fix Ferris is proposing, you can also ask them to apply it (FIXME#8).
If you don't want to use the codelens, you can disable it and instead invoke the "IntoRust: Explain errors" command from the command palette as desired (FIXME#5).
IntoRust can also tailor its responses to your knowledge level. For example, you can ask it to provide examples in terms of languages you already know, like Java or Python. Just ask it! It will remember. (FIXME#14)
WARNING
IntoRust sends snippets and fragments of your code to external LLMs like Copilot to provide responses. These LLMs may retain data from these prompts for their own purposes. If you don't like this, either configure IntoRust to use an LLM you are comfortable with (FIXME#10) or configure it to only be enabled on open source projects (FIXME#13).
Frequently asked questions
LLMs already explain errors, why will this be better?
A very good question and I'm not sure it will be.
But I have a few things I'd like to try:
- Can we bake-in expert knowledge about common Rust mistakes and errors? When I confer with Rust users I see a bunch of common errors and I'm curious how much we can tailor responses to help them understand that.
- Can we build out a smaller, open-source model that we distribute with Rust and use to provide these explanations? This is really the holy grail for me. I see GenAI as a way to take Rust's error messages and learnability to the next level and I'd like that to be available to all Rust users as part of its standard distribution.
- Independently from GenAI, can we provide a more interactive experience for Rust error messages? The current "console-based errors" seem to be about as good as they can get.
At worst I have some fun learning about prompt engineering and writing VSCode extensions.