Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sometimes a bit confused when people say that Rust has less cognitive load. I assume that's compared to something like C or C++, right? I've used Rust and (imperative-style) Scala a lot, and I have to say, Scala is way easier since it doesn't have to deal with the borrow checker, but it still has an amazing type system. Nim is statically typed and has algebraic data types, so I imagine it's also as easy as Scala,…
Imagine if someone said "I've used Python and Scala and Python is way easier since I don't have to deal with a type system". That's where people are coming from. The borrow checker isn't a hindrance, it's an aid. Rust gives me syntax to describe lifetimes and a tool to check that syntax.
Yes, but if you have immutability and a garbage collector (and can afford to use some extra memory overhead), the borrow checker and lifetimes aren't really all that necessary to bother with.