All tests run on an 8-year-old MacBook Air. All results from shipping 7 Mac apps as a solo developer. No sponsored opinion.

Rust's ownership system is the right idea. It's also the biggest learning curve. After 7 shipped apps, here are the patterns I actually use daily.

Clone When It's Cheap, Reference When It Matters

The beginner mistake: fighting the borrow checker by cloning everything.

The intermediate mistake: avoiding clones so aggressively that the code becomes unreadable.