Comment OP's stance is valid. "Magic" in this context are keywords or symbols that are not immediately clear to programmers that don't work in rust. One of the reasons golang is so successful is that there is very little magic in the syntax, and even when there is it's fairly easy to grok (an example would be the `go` keyword).
FWIW I also share their opinion that rust is unapproachable.
> One of the reasons golang is so successful is that there is very little magic in the syntax, and even when there is it's fairly easy to grok (an example would be the `go` keyword).
Do you have a specific symbol you would like to change in Rust, and what would you like to change it to?
The only example I've seen (in a child comment to yours) is effectively a complaint that Rust has lifetimes and Go doesn't, which is effectively saying "you should have a garbage collector like Go does", which is an argument against a fundamental design decision of Rust. If you want to argue that you should always use a garbage collector, argue that directly instead of making vague negative comparisons between Rust's and Go's syntax.
I'm definitely a Rust fanboy, but the single-quote syntax for lifetime annotations can be irritating. Several editors I've used automatically insert a second quote to match, and I am frequently unable to disable that behavior without losing all paired delimiter insertion (like for parentheses or braces).
It's a minor quibble to be sure, but it's the only language symbol that bothers me when writing Rust. Not sure what I'd suggest replacing it with...backtick, maybe? Pipe? @? ~?
There aren't many other special characters on a QWERTY board that aren't already used in Rust. Which I think gets at one of the stumbling blocks that I see in the various Rust syntax bikesheds among those who haven't worked in the language. It's just alien until you've used it a bit, especially if you're writing a lot in pseudocode-y dynamic languages.
We had a big debate about it back in the day, and ' won as it's about as visually lightweight as you can get. I think the other characters you suggested would invite even more Perl comparisons.
Because Rust has lifetimes and Go doesn't, so Go doesn't need syntax for them. If you want to argue that Rust should use a garbage collector like Golang does (which entails arguing that everybody who is using Rust is wrong for not wanting an always-on GC) I'm happy to have that argument, but say so explicitly.
FWIW I also share their opinion that rust is unapproachable.