> Question: Does this mean it's possible to rework Rust to remove the accursed borrow checker?
Sure, with the "unsafe" keyword. But you probably don't want to do that in most cases as it will open new failure modes the compiler can protect you from. As another commenter pointed out, the borrow checker has become more clever over time (with NLLs) so if you tried Rust years ago i definitely recommend to give it a new try.
At first i was a little confused with compiler errors, but they're pretty good (unique error code, and usually suggestions for fix) but over time i realized the compiler was not my enemy but rather a very friendly reviewer preventing me to make obvious mistakes in my code. Nowadays i pseudocode my Rust on paper then write the actual code, then spend some time arguing with the compiler, but the design-code-debug lifecycle has been much reduced (compared with other languages) because there are very good chances the program works perfectly as soon as it compiles, and when it doesn't in 99% of cases that's because my logic was wrong to begin with, not because of a programming error.
Sure, with the "unsafe" keyword. But you probably don't want to do that in most cases as it will open new failure modes the compiler can protect you from. As another commenter pointed out, the borrow checker has become more clever over time (with NLLs) so if you tried Rust years ago i definitely recommend to give it a new try.
At first i was a little confused with compiler errors, but they're pretty good (unique error code, and usually suggestions for fix) but over time i realized the compiler was not my enemy but rather a very friendly reviewer preventing me to make obvious mistakes in my code. Nowadays i pseudocode my Rust on paper then write the actual code, then spend some time arguing with the compiler, but the design-code-debug lifecycle has been much reduced (compared with other languages) because there are very good chances the program works perfectly as soon as it compiles, and when it doesn't in 99% of cases that's because my logic was wrong to begin with, not because of a programming error.