[tasn]

I think this framing is a bit backwards. Many C programs (and many parts of C programs) would benefit from being more like Go or Python as evident by your very own sds.c.

Now, if what you're saying is that with super highly optimized sections of a codebase, or extremely specific circumstances (some kernel drivers) you'd need a bit of unsafe rust: then sure. Though all of a sudden you flipped the script, and the unsafe becomes the exception, not the rule; and you can keep those pieces of code contained. Similarly to how C programmers use inline assembly in some scenarios.

Funny enough, this is similar to something that Rust did the opposite of C, and is much better for it: immutable by default (let mut vs. const in C) and non-nullable by default (and even being able to define something as non-null). Flipping the script so that GOOD is default and BAD is rare was a huge win.

I definitely don't think Rust is a silver bullet, though I'd definitely say it's at least a silver alloy bullet. At least when it comes to the above topics.