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Introduction

Welcome to my digital workshop.

You’ve stumbled upon a living collection of code, ideas, and experiments - part documentation, part developer’s journal, and entirely a reflection of what keeps me tinkering late into the night.

My name is Ivan Chetchasov. I write systems in Rust, design programming languages for fun, and occasionally argue with compilers about borrow checking. This book is where I gather the fruits of that labour: libraries, utilities, and whatever else emerges from the intersection of curiosity and caffeine.

What You’ll Find Inside

This isn’t a single‑product manual. It’s a workshop — each chapter stands on its own, but together they show a consistent philosophy:

  • Practicality first – If it doesn’t solve a real problem, it doesn’t belong here.
  • Educational by accident – I write code that’s readable, and I explain why things work the way they do.
  • Experimental without apology – Some projects are production‑ready; others are playgrounds. Both are valuable.

Here’s a taste of what’s already inside (and what’s coming):

The inherit Ecosystem

A Git‑native templating system that turns any repository into a reusable project generator.
No more copy‑paste‑search‑replace. Just cargo inherit user/template to my-project.

  • inherit-core – the engine that scans, replaces, and respects .inherignore
  • cargo-inherit – the CLI that adds aliases, defaults, caching, and interactive prompts

> Read more

A Rust Dialect (Working Title: “Dust”)

This is a secret so far ;P

Utility Crates

  • kissreplace – stupid‑simple placeholder replacement (scan, replace, validate)
  • lazyget – lazy loading with caching
  • inherit-core and cargo-inherit (already mentioned)
  • And more that will appear as I write them

> Read more on kissreplace > Read more on lazyget

Blog‑Style Posts

From time to time I’ll drop a chapter that isn’t code‑heavy but reflects on:

  • “Why I rewrote the template scanner three times”
  • “Lessons from building a small GUI library”
  • “The joy and pain of custom Rust-like syntax”

Think of it as a technical blog embedded in a book.

How to Read This Book

The chapters are arranged roughly by maturity:

  • Done ✅ – inherit-core, cargo-inherit (full-featured guides for existing crates)
  • In Progress ⏳ – you already can read it, but it can contain disinfo or typos
  • Experimental ⚠️ – sort of chapters not for wide audicy
  • Blog ❤️ – random thoughts and post‑mortems

You can jump directly to any chapter. The sidebar navigation is your friend.

Contact & Contributions

I love hearing from readers — whether it’s a bug report, a question, or just “hey, this helped me”.

If you find a typo, a broken link, or a code snippet that doesn’t compile, please let me know.
Better yet, open a pull request on the GitHub repository for this book.

A Note on “Ivan Chetchasov”

Yes, that’s my real name. Yes, it’s a mouthful. You can call me Ivan or Vi — I answer to both. The vi.is.chapmann email address is a tiny homage to my past.

Ready?

Let’s build something interesting.

“The best way to predict the future is to implement it.”
— Alan Kay (sort of)

Proceed to the next chapter, or pick whatever catches your eye. The code is waiting.