You speak as if you're so sure of yourself. Not with opinions but apparently presenting facts. Problem is most of your "facts" are wrong. Thankfully the actual experts are patient enough to explain this. But not a single "Oh, sorry, I was wrong about that." Just silence on the things you were called out on, as if you weren't just called out on them.
My real criticism here is that Rust isn't able to wipe C and C++ off the face of the earth. Rust solves the three big problems which C fails to address - "How big is it", "Who owns it", and "Who locks it". We need that, with the endless CERT advisories of buffer overflows. That's the real issue here - memory safety is a big, big security issue. The threat is getting worse, too. It's nation states now, not script kiddies.
Rust usage is very low. It isn't even in the TIOBE Top 20 for 2016.[1] (In the detailed listings, it's at position 46, just above Awk.) Why is market penetration so low? I'm arguing that there's too much gratuitous new stuff for Rust to be acceptable to the C/C++ community.
I agree that I want Rust usage to grow. I disagree that we made technical mistakes that hamper its growth. You've thrown out dozens of reasons over time, none of which were legitimate. Every time you name some feature of Rust you claim is a "gratuitous new thing", we calmly show you why (a) that feature is already in C++ or (more often) (b) that feature is necessary to make lifetimes/ownership/borrowing work.
I think that the simple fact is that ownership, lifetimes, and borrowing are unfamiliar. They have a learning curve, period. We can't expect a language with them to take over the world in a year. Programming languages are a mature market. Progress will be slow.
Rust is doing far better than 95% of new programming languages after a year. Most programming languages are dead after a year.
Thank you for your impeccable responses, it's one of the reasons I love hn.
FWIW, I think a few explainer pieces would help bring about more enlightened discussions. For example, there is a lot of bikeshedding around Rusts' decision to wrap overflows and potential future improvements. But the rationale and interesting technical challenges each alternative brings is scattered across blog posts, forum threads, and Github issue tickets.
This is the worst side of this place.