Rustup: Discussion UX about sourcing env instructions for beginners (students)

[darnuria]

Hi,
I would like to open a discussion for improving the last part of rustup installation of rust the asking for sourcing shell env below the full details! Thanks for reading. :)

If a consensus is reached I would be happy to implement the solution.

Situation

I used rustup to install rust with computer science bachelor two, students in semi-autonomy with docs, and message about «setting environment variable confused them». Not in a way their don't understand but in a way they don't understand that source is part of the full command: source $HOME/.cargo/env the problem repeated for 14 peoples in 2 classes so they only typed $HOME/.cargo/env.

But the problem is really specific that this command in bold is not seen as a command line at first glance by command line beginner.

The message at time of writing

Right now the message is:

To get started you need Cargo's bin directory ($HOME/.cargo/bin) in your PATH
environment variable. Next time you log in this will be done
automatically.

To configure your current shell run source $HOME/.cargo/env ### <- this command is in bold.

Suggestion to improve UX:

Maybe doing something like:

To configure your current shell run :
    source $HOME/.cargo/env

In this case a clear distinction is made between command and human instruction.

Or more terse:

To configure your current shell run : source $HOME/.cargo/env 

Thanks for reading sorry it's a raw UX feedback from teaching Rust right after making their first course of Rust, they already did racket and C language in L1 so their are not totally new to programming and linux! So i wish to open a discussion about this specific issue I observed. :)

[rbtcollins]

I think this is a good point, bold is not very clear at all.

On Wed, 30 Sep 2020 at 10:06, Axel Viala [e-mail] wrote:

Hi,
I would like to open a discussion for improving the last part of rustup
installation of rust the asking for sourcing shell env below the full
details! Thanks for reading. :)
Situation

I used rustup to install rust with computer science bachelor two, students
in semi-autonomy with docs, and message about «setting environment variable
confused them». Not in a way their don't understand but in a way they don't
understand that source is part of the full command: source
$HOME/.cargo/env the problem repeated for 14 peoples in 2 classes so they
only typed $HOME/.cargo/env.

But the problem is really specific that this command in bold is not seen
as a command line at first glance by command line beginner.
The message at time of writing

Right now the message is:

To get started you need Cargo's bin directory ($HOME/.cargo/bin) in your PATH

environment variable. Next time you log in this will be done

automatically.

To configure your current shell run source $HOME/.cargo/env ### <- this command is in bold.

[image: Screenshot from 2020-09-30 09-59-35]
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2827553/94658846-ae5c4580-0303-11eb-92ab-2baf8506cf3b.png
Suggestion to improve UX:

Maybe doing something like:

To configure your current shell run :

source $HOME/.cargo/env

In this case a clear distinction is made between command and human
instruction.

Or more terse:

To configure your current shell run : source $HOME/.cargo/env

Thanks for reading sorry it's a raw UX feedback from teaching Rust right
after making their first course of Rust, they already did racket and C
language in L1 so their are not totally new to programming and linux! So i
wish to open a discussion about this specific issue I observed. :)

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[kinnison]

I agree, making this clearer is a good plan. I am happy to mentor someone who wants to make the change.

[workingjubilee]

opine: it should use the first :\n$command\n presentation so that there is an unambiguous start and end for the command.

[AureliaDolo]

Hi !
I'm new to rust and github but I will try to do it by myself.
If I'm stuck, tomorrow in the afternoon I will say " Hi, I need help!".

[AureliaDolo]

Hi !
I searched for To configure your current shell and added \n where needed as described by @workingjubilee.

[AureliaDolo]

Update : PR looks good, it's waiting approval to be merged. :)