Personally, Rust only makes sense in scenarios that automatic memory management of any kind is either unwanted, or it is a quixotic battle making the target group think otherwise.

OS kernels, firmware, GPGPU,....

If it is the ML inspired type system, there are plenty of options among compiled managed languages, true Go isn't really on that camp, but whatever.

Dealing with references you typically find in a compiler is not a problem for Rust. Arena allocation and indices are your friend.

He also mentioned doing a line-for-line port. Assuming you could somehow manage that, you'd probably end up with something slower than JS (not entirely a joke). I'm a rust fanboy, but have to concede that Go was the be t choice here.

If it was a fresh compiler then the choice would be more difficult.

I wonder if this project can easily be integrated into Deno (built mainly in Rust)?