Design Patterns in Rust

The book "Design Patterns in Rust" is a practical guide to applying classic design patterns (GoF) in the Rust language ecosystem. Unlike traditional implementations in Java or C++, the author adapts each pattern taking into account the key features of Rust: the ownership system, borrowing, lifetimes, and the absence of a garbage collector.

What the book is about

The book covers 23 main patterns, divided into three categories:

• Creational Patterns — Builder, Factory Method, Singleton, and others. You will learn how to create objects without unwanted side effects using RAII principles and type safety.
• Structural Patterns — Adapter, Decorator, Composite, and others. Special attention is paid to working with traits, generics, and composition over inheritance.
• Behavioral Patterns — Observer, Strategy, Command, and others. Implementations using closures, channels, and iterators.

Who this book is for

• Rust developers who want to systematize their knowledge and move from "how it works" to "how to design."
• Programmers with experience in other languages (Java, C++, Python) who want to bring best practices to Rust while avoiding common mistakes.
• Those preparing code for production — the book shows how patterns help with testing, maintenance, and scaling.

What you will learn

• How to rethink classic patterns in the context of the ownership and borrowing model.
• Why some patterns (e.g., Observer) are implemented in Rust via channels or traits rather than interfaces.
• How to use Rust idioms (Newtype, Interior Mutability, PhantomData) for elegant solutions.
• How to avoid anti-patterns related to unsafe code and circular references.
• Real-world examples: from web servers to parsers and game engines.

Each pattern is accompanied by complete Rust code, diagrams, and a performance analysis. The book is suitable both for self-study and for use as a reference during development.

Author — Alexey Sokolov, a developer with 10 years of experience specializing in systems programming and safe languages. He runs a blog about Rust and is among the top 100 contributors to Rust Analyzer.