[duneroadrunner]

> unless you just don't use pointers or references at all (and refrain from using any library that is not safe which includes large parts of the standard library like all the containers)

It may seem far fetched, but it might be more practical than you'd think. The SaferCPlusPlus[1] library provides memory-safe implementations of the most commonly used standard library containers, and pointer types that reflect the lifetimes of their target objects. That is to say, there is a practical subset of C++ that is more closely comparable to safe Rust than is conventional C++.

[1] shameless plug: https://github.com/duneroadrunner/SaferCPlusPlus