> The Rust community should be upfront about this tradeoff - it's a universal tradeoff, that is: Safety is less ergonomic.

That can be true for small programs. Not always, because Rust's type system makes for programs that can be every bit as compact as Python if the algorithm doesn't interact badly with the borrow checker. Or even if it does. For example this tutorial converts a fairly nary C program to Rust: https://cliffle.com/p/dangerust/ The C was 234 lines, the finished memory safe Rust 198 lines.

But when it comes to large programs, the ergonomics strangely tips into reverse. By "strangely tips into reverse", I mean yes it takes more tokens and thinking to produce a working Rust program, but overall it saves time. Here a "large program" means a programmer can't fit it all in his head at one time. I think Andrew Huang summed the effect up best, when he said if you start pulling on a thread in a Rust program, you always get to the end. In other languages, you often just make the knot tighter.