Paycheck-Utils

(a work in progress -> there may be errors)

This project is an exercise in developing a personal Rust utility library with useful functions for managing paycheck income.
It is the final assignment for the course "Rust Fundamentals" taught by Alfredo Deza representing Duke University on the Coursera learning platform.
The assignment instructions are as follows:

External Lab: Create a Rust library (NOTE: A CLI TOOL HAS BEEN ADDED TO THIS PROJECT)

In this lab, you will create a library in Rust to reinforce the concepts covered in the last lesson. You can choose one of the following library ideas, or you are free to create one on your own. You will add code to the lib.rs file, document your code, and utilize tools like Makefile and Cargo. The end result will be a GitHub repository containing the complete code for your chosen library.

Learning Objectives:

- Gain experience in creating a library and organizing code in Rust.

- Practice documenting code using comments and Rust's documentation conventions.

- Understand how to use a Makefile to automate build tasks and simplify compilation.

- Explore public and private modules in Rust and define appropriate access levels for functions.

Steps:

1. Create a new repository in your account for your Rust library project. 
(You can also use the Rust template repository to quickly generate the scaffolding for your project in your own account.)

2. Use the example code used for this week as a starting point

3. Use one of the library ideas below or implement one from your own

Bonus: Try publishing your documented library to crates.io so that you can share it with others as a crate.

My Library Project

I chose to create a library that was personally relevant and useful to me -- specifically, a library that contains utility functions for estimating paycheck withholdings and net income in order to compare against a given set of living expenses. The idea is similar to the "Sample Paycheck" tool found in the Paycom employee portal, but aimed at having a little more flexibility.

The primary question this library aims to answer is: "Given an hourly wage and number of hours worked per week, what would my net paycheck be after taxes and deductions?"

* A Note on Copilot usage *

Copilot is initially paused to allow me time to think through the solution on my own to try to implement the ideas and features I have in mind. If I cannot seem to come up with a solution in 30-45 mins, I begin to allow Copilot offer suggestions to determine if it fits what I am trying to accomplish. If I do not understand the code offered by Copilot, I ask for an explanation of what it's doing and decide to keep it or not. Copilot does not always know what I am trying to do. For example, the modules and key words I have used in this library make Copilot think I am trying to create a library for filing taxes at tax season, but the library is intended to help calculate paycheck income, deductions, and taxes -- not federal income taxes, deductions and income/expenses as filed during tax season.

Install the Crate