[bitwize]

Prior exposure to C appears to be negatively correlated with ease in learning Rust. This is why I say Rust is not a language for C programmers -- it's for their replacements. Young programmers with only a few years' experience in JavaScript or Ruby are now coding circles around the old C wizards, contributing bare-metal, bit-banging code that is guaranteed to be free of several classes of bugs those C wizards are still struggling with.

[kaashif]

That's surprising. I would've thought most C programmers have at least some experience writing C++, and C++ programmers (and C programmers too, but I don't know anyone who programs primarily in C so I can't comment) already do many of the things Rust does for you. Like thinking about lifetimes, const by default, moving instead of copying, avoiding raw pointers like the plague, etc.

Someone who has never thought about that stuff must surely find it harder to appreciate Rust.