I think this is a good approach & you can definitely write small programmes that solve low hanging fruit for others rather than yourself. The trouble the hypot

I think this is a good approach & you can definitely write small programmes that solve low hanging fruit for others rather than yourself. The trouble the hypothetical dev in the article has is that they're searching in the wrong place — the 'solution domain' (Rust mailing list) rather than the problem domain. I think if you want good project ideas, go to any random problem domain e.g. find a woodworkers mailing list, say & ask — "what small little programme could I write that would help you when starting projects". Then, because you've just learned Rust, programme it in Rust. But the people you're developing it for neither need to know or care what language it's in. If you go to the Rust mailing list to ask for project ideas then you're going to either get non-real-world sample projects (build a calculator), or you're likely to get something that's a problem for Rust devs, which is likely over your head as a beginner.