This book covers a deep topic in a relatively short space. Throughout the text, the reader is expected to be comfortable with the Rust programming language, have access to a Rust compiler and a computer on which to compile, and execute Rust programs. What additional software appears in this book is covered in Chapter 1, Preliminaries – Machine Architecture and Getting Started with Rust, and it is recommended for use but not mandatory. 

The basic premise of this book is as follows—parallel programming is difficult but not impossible. Parallel programming can be done, and done well, when attention is paid to the computing environment and care is put into the validation of the produced program. To that end, each chapter has been written with an eye toward imparting a solid foundation to the reader of the chapter's subject. Once a chapter is digested, the reader will, hopefully, have a solid path into the existing body of literature on that subject. In that, this is a book of beginnings, not ends. 

I strongly encourage the reader to take an active role in reading this book, download the source code, investigate the projects as you read through independent of the book's take, and probe the running programs with the tools available on your operating system. Like anything else, parallel programming ability is a skill that is acquired and honed by practice. 

One final note—allow the process of learning to proceed at its own pace. If one chapter's subject doesn't immediately settle in your mind, that's okay. For me, the process of writing the book was a confluence of flashes of insight and knowledge that unfolded slowly like a flower. I imagine that the process of reading the book will proceed analogously. 

The code bundle for the book is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Hands-On-Concurrency-with-Rust. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

You can also download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "The seeds are for XorShiftRng, move to previous line max_in_memory_bytes and max_disk_bytes are for hopper."

A block of code is set as follows:

fn main() {
    println!("Apollo is the name of a space program but also my dog.");
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

> cat hello.rs
fn main() {
 println!("Apollo is the name of a space program but also my dog.");
}
> rustc -C opt-level=2 hello.rs
> ./hello
Apollo is the name of a space program but also my dog.

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen.