Compose Guillaume Gomez – Rustdoc as a case study of developer tooling
Jun 12, 2025
In this engaging discussion, Guillaume Gomez, a dedicated Rust contributor since 2013 and team lead for Rustdoc, delves into the evolution and significance of Rust's documentation tools. He shares insights on balancing design and functionality, the role of the Abstract Syntax Tree in optimization, and the user experience enhancements achieved through feedback. Gomez also addresses the challenges of open-source contributions and strategies for managing burnout, providing practical advice for developers navigating the Rust ecosystem.
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Guillaume's Early RustDoc Experience
- Guillaume Gomez began contributing to RustDoc in 2013 when Rust was unstable and RustDoc was a proof of concept.
- He fell in love with RustDoc because it made generating documentation easy, with tested examples and Markdown support.
Minimal JavaScript Philosophy
- RustDoc team avoids using JavaScript where it isn't fundamentally needed to enhance accessibility and simplify hosting.
- They provide core functionality directly in HTML so docs work without JavaScript, with features like search optionally using JavaScript.
Learning by Contributing
- Guillaume started contributing because RustDoc was breaking and he wanted to fix it, not just out of motivation.
- He learned about compilers and Rust internals by contributing and is still learning after 10 years.