I've recently worked on rewriting small-but-not-trivial dynamically typed programs in Rust, and also work on tooling at my company (also written in a dynamically typed language); the sore points you've mentioned are very real and significant.
However, the productivity gains mentioned are an effect of any statically typed language, not just of of Rust, and the problem is that Rust's cognitive overhead offsets them. I definitely would not bring Rust to the table at my company because of that; I've recently had an experience with an engineer who thought it was fun to use, but couldn't write anything with it; I'm sure that with a simpler language, they could have.
I think there are new languages that are a valid middle ground (between Golang and Rust), although they don't have yet enough traction and/or maturity (most importantly, in terms of libraries available) - in other words, they's still hobby languages as of now. I have the suspicion that if a new language will become an established one, it will still take "not few" years, not less than 5/10, unfortunately. I like to use Lambda languages support as an indicator :)
Totally agree. I think Rust advocates can be quite myopic, and tend to frame Rust's advantages relative to C++ or Python/JS in particular. But there are a great many languages which are more productive than Rust, and don't have some of the specific relative drawbacks that C++ or Python do.
I really enjoy programming in Rust, but it's undeniable it makes tradeoffs in terms of productivity for the unique value proposition it presents. The idea that Rust should be used to implement every CRUD webservice, or that Rust -> wasm should be used to implement every web app just seems like irrational exuberance to me.
However, the productivity gains mentioned are an effect of any statically typed language, not just of of Rust, and the problem is that Rust's cognitive overhead offsets them. I definitely would not bring Rust to the table at my company because of that; I've recently had an experience with an engineer who thought it was fun to use, but couldn't write anything with it; I'm sure that with a simpler language, they could have.
I think there are new languages that are a valid middle ground (between Golang and Rust), although they don't have yet enough traction and/or maturity (most importantly, in terms of libraries available) - in other words, they's still hobby languages as of now. I have the suspicion that if a new language will become an established one, it will still take "not few" years, not less than 5/10, unfortunately. I like to use Lambda languages support as an indicator :)