[qalmakka]

The fact implicit conversions exist doesn't really weaken the type system, the two are different concepts. If you define an overload or a type specialization on both the compiler will call the right version without any ambiguity. You can even define your own implicit conversions itself, and sometimes they have their uses, like when you need to wrap values in proxies but you still don't want the user to actually have to know that.

The template system and stuff like auto and such are crazy powerful. The Rust typesystem doesn't suffer from the C compatibility baggage and has been designed almost 30 years later, so it is amazing C++ can be so powerful and feel modern despite it being a forty years old language.

I write both Rust and C++ and I have to say, you can do a lot of type safe stuff in C++ too. Most patterns can be backported from Rust and while the ergonomics are not obviously at par, there is still a lot you can do. In C++you can do a crazy amount of metaintrospection at compile time that Rust can only do using procedural macros. Also constexpr and C++20's constinit and consteval are still more powerful than Rust's const.

[pjmlp]

It is nothing to be amazed, other than we are finally able to enjoy such type systems in mainstream languages.

PL/I and Algol 68 were equally powerfull, or if you research into was being done in Xerox PARC workstations.

If anything, we are 30 years too late for where we could have been if it wasn't for UNIX winning the worstation market.