[returningfory2]

I think the point of the article is the other way around: when starting from a language like C that doesn't have bound checking, moving to Rust will involve adding bounds checks and then an argument will be made that this will regress performance. So to test that hypothesis you start with the safe Rust code, and then remove the bounds check to emulate what the C code might be like. If, as in the article, you find that performance is not really affected, then it makes a C-to-Rust migration argument more compelling.

[ablob]

Making the migration in order to find out if it was worth it appears to be quite an expensive test of an hypothesis.

[emn13]

What's the alternative, really?