[jariel]

"Software security matters"

I think the responder's version of 'safety' really boils down to 'null pointer safety' - not 'software security'.

And even then, people keep talking about it like it's 'the thing'.

Java has null 'references' as do most languages frankly and it's just 'a thing' almost never 'the thing' to be concerned about.

'What devs want' is basically something kind of like Java, but that compiles, predictable/controllable performance and memory management i.e. no GC. That's it. It will probably end up being Rust, but that's because Rust will eventually provide all the nice, clean, modern package management, idioms, libraries etc., not specifically because of the 'safety'.

Granted I don't want to diminish that in the attempt to create 'proper memory management' you probably end up writing better software anyhow.

[fractionalhare]

That's fair. Instead of saying "software security" I should have been more specific in talking about memory and pointer issues. In that sense, yes Rust does offer some safety guarantees beyond preventing memory corruption vulnerabilities.