I swear I've seen more than one person gripe about this. Mostly from a change of thinking but it seems recurring. Might hurt adoption. I'd have expected Rust proponents to have a link on-hand for this to a guide that teaches this stuff in a way to reduce the effect. To be clear, this is not a critique of the Rust team so much as an observation of a larger problem in PL adoption that might be affecting Rust.
The trick, IIRC, was to have some smart people create a series of programming exercises that are complex enough to be a learning experience, teach a subset of the language at a time, and gradually let the concepts sink in. Practical Common LISP and Land of the LISP do this pretty well for a very confusing language. Rust will probably benefit from such a work, even more than CL. Just a suggestion in case someone's not working on it. ;)
That stuff works wonders for ease-of-adoption but such writing takes talent to produce. Takes someone with strong, tech skills who can also break anything down into English a layperson can understand. As in, it's really a series of consistent abstractions that form an effective, mental foundation for using and applying the language. Not regular definitions and examples but a true, gradual, practical process. Hopefully, you've seen such a great work vs a regular, language guide so you know what I'm talking about.
